


Bird on the Wire

by runrarebit



Series: Altered Trajectory [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, Ableism, Ableist Language, Billy Hargrove Lives, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Billy Hargrove does not like most people, Billy Hargrove is kind of a dick, Billy is not a responsible driver, Billy wants to be a good brother even if he doesn't realise it, Billy/Steve is endgame, Body Horror, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Denial, Dyslexia, Dyslexic Steve Harrington, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Homophobic Slurs, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Max is not an idiot, Navel-Gazing, Neil Hargrove - Freeform, Not obliviously bisexual Steve Harrington, Past Carol/Tommy H./Steve Harrington - Freeform, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Smoking, Tags May Change, Underage Drinking, ableist slurs, child emotional abuse, cronenbergian monstrosities, dead!Billy trying to fix things, homoerotic pining, internalized ableism, kind of time travel but not exactly, mention of sex acts of both the m/f and m/m variety, obliviously bisexual Billy Hargrove, people other than Will Byers discussing Will Byers' sexuality, season 03 au, some tags are prospective, temporary immortality, title may change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-07-08 14:36:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19871257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: So apparently I've written more in the same universe asAltered TrajectoryandPut on a Happy Face.In which Billy Hargrove attempts to survive the apocalypse he can already remember happening, while dealing with such difficulties as talking to Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington smelling good, Steve Harrington's stupid inappropriate sailor suit, people being near Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington in general, being a better brother to Max, El, Max's shitty friends, Heather, guilt, his other assorted issues, and occasionally his own ghost, or whatever it is, and the fact that he doesn’t seem quite- right.In other words, season 3 rewrite plus homoerotic pining (oblivious on Billy's part).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is still not what I'm supposed to be doing- but I'll just refer to it as recreation when arguing with myself. No major trigger warnings this chapter, I don't think. Please always feel like you can tell me if I'm wrong.
> 
> Thank you all for the lovely reception of the last two fics I wrote, I hope this doesn't disappoint.

So he doesn’t sleep, and he doesn’t go home, because if he goes home he’ll have to explain to his dad why his car’s all fucked even though it’s _his_ fucking car and he paid for it and he’s the one who’ll pay to get it fixed. He’s going to have to pray like hell his dad’s in the right mood— he’ll say it was a deer. No other choice.

Honestly by the time the sun’s come up properly he’s not entirely convinced it wasn’t a deer and a touch of concussion— but there’s this voice in the back of his head. Nagging at him. Sounds entirely too much like his own.

He goes to the pool, goes to work, because he’s not sure what else to do. The problem is that he feels sick and loopy and a bit like maybe he’s turning out as fucking _crazy_ as his old man. Next thing you know he’ll be telling war stories and buying medals in pawn shops and acting like he’s not a flat-footed wannabe war hero that actually failed the physical exam—

His dad doesn’t even know he knows. His dad would fucking _kill_ him if the old bastard ever found out— though it’s not like it’s his fucking fault that uncle Harry let it slip one afternoon when it was just _him_ around to scrape the guy off the linoleum and try to carry him to bed— all drunk and crying and cursing his dad out for escaping the horror of it. He was just a kid and Harry was more than twice his size. A bit hard to kill Harry though, considering he shot himself a couple months later. _He’d_ been the one to discover that too, them staying with the guy after his mom walked out— then a couple months after that Neil met Susan— he’s getting distracted, lost in his own head.

There’s this scar on his ankle that wasn’t there yesterday, even though it’s faint and silvery and old looking. A spider-web kind of thing that looks like it’s in the pattern of something grabbing him. So, yeah. If he is actually going crazy these are some vivid fucking hallucinations he’s having.

The scar makes him want to hide his skin, cover up under socks and jeans and a long-sleeved shirt— It’s funny, he can remember his body not being able to stand the heat. He can remember Max and her little friends locking him in the sauna— He can remember trying to hurt them, _kill_ them, not just them, but others— _Heather—_ and succeeding. Sacrificing her. Bringing her to be part of—

Fuck.

Fuck his life.

So— Max, or that kid— _El_ he remembers— or Wheeler, or Byers, or Harrington— Which one of those chucklefucks does he want to go spilling his guts to? Max is out of the question. If he is nuts, which he might be, it’s not like he can really do something to her to make her forget he said anything. He’ll have to live with her, live with her remembering, _knowing_ — like he has to live with the fact she knows about his dad, the way fucking Neil treats him. Knows and has _opinions_ about it, opinions enough that she told her dad and he started making a stink and then _he’d_ had to set the guy straight— anyway. He’s not going to think about that. Thinking about that leads to thinking about punching her old man square in the jaw and all the trouble that had caused. _Hello Hawkins Indiana, you fucking Hell Pit!_

So, no Max. No Wheeler either, ‘cause she seems a real uppity judgemental bitch, but at the same time the thought of hurting her to make her shut up if she thinks he’s being a psycho for what he has to tell her makes him feel a bit sick. That just leaves Byers or Harrington.

 _Fuck_. He can’t make up his fucking mind.

He kind of doesn’t want to have to deal with Harrington. Like, _ever again_ , but at the same time he does know if the other guy doesn’t believe him— or worse, starts giving him shit about it— that he can _make Harrington shut up_. He can win if it comes down to a fight, _hurt_ Harrington until Harrington submits. Byers though— Byers is an unknown. Looks small, dweeby, but that prick Tommy told him that Byers managed to beat up Harrington, so—

So—

He notices motion out of the corner of his eye, has him blowing his whistle before he even thinks, bellowing at the kid running, and not just running, but running with a dripping ice cream. Stupid little shit. Is she trying to slip and crack her fucking skull?

The taste of bleach seems to linger on his tongue, the memory of Karen Wheeler rejecting him. She didn’t come to the Motel last night, he can see it in the guilt on her face, can remember her telling him in another life. He waits for regret, for resentment, for the unfulfilled _want_ he should feel when he looks at her—

All that seems of another life too. Don’t get him wrong, she’s still smoking hot, but his brain’s buzzing too much.

What he needs to do is relax— get his thinking straight.

That prick Tommy is having a party tonight— like most nights recently, since his parents are out of town. Last time there was no way in hell he was going— even before he’d decided to try it on with Karen Wheeler, let alone ending up possessed or whatever the fuck that was— he’s fucking sick of Tommy, Carol, their endless fucking _arguing_ , the weird vibe that’s hanging around them, but maybe if he drinks a bit too much, smokes a bit of weed if anyone’s got any, makes out with a girl for a bit, then gets some _sleep_ , he might wake up to a world that makes sense again. Or at least a world in which he knows what to say and who to say it to so he’s believed and nothing ends in violence.

He’s got time, as he sees it. Even if the Mind Flayer, or whatever it is, is out there it hasn’t got _him_ this time, and from what he remembers it was only when it got _him_ that its plans really got going.

Karen Wheeler tries to talk to him later, as he’s heading to the showers before leaving for the day, apologies spilling from her lips, but he brushes past her with nothing more than an ‘it’s probably for the best.’

Tommy’s party is just as annoying as he suspected it would be. The host and his girlfriend have a big fight in front of everyone at the start of the night— and not just a normal fight either, but a fucking _incoherent_ fight, all half sentences and references they don’t bother explaining to the audience, the main issue seeming to be Tommy calling someone a _retard_ — but since he’s heard Carol use the word herself he doesn’t get her issue, but obviously she’s got one, and just as obviously Tommy knows what it is from the way he’s acting like he pissed in her cereal and is pissed she’s making such a big deal out of it.

He starts out with beer, dances a bit with a cute girl— _Tammy_ , he thinks?— but when they sneak off to make out for a bit she stops him before he can get his hands under those cute little short-shorts she’s wearing. Which. Yeah, actually he’s cool about that. He’s not quite in the mood to get his dick sucked, even if it might distract him for a bit.

This time last time he was handing Heather over to the Mind Flayer.

Yeah, he’s feeling a bit agitated.

He tries to make sure Tammy or whatever knows he’s cool about stopping, but she seems a bit upset, and like she’s in danger of talking herself into doing something that neither of them wants, so he suggests they break into Tommy’s dad’s bar instead. Bourbon for him. Fucking _Scotch_ for her— he would have expected something sweeter. There’s some peach Schnapps in there. Cherry Brandy. But no, Talisker. Anyway, after that they go their separate ways.

He ends up in the basement, because fuck ugly though it is some part of him loves the Seventies love-den Tommy’s parents have kept down there— so different than the image their son is so desperate to give off. Fucking puke yellow shag carpet. It’s hilarious.

He’s finished off half the bottle of bourbon, lounging on a fascinatingly ugly— yet strangely comfortable— green corduroy two-piece recliner set, smoking and ashing into a carnival glass ashtray when he hears that prick Tommy calling out for Carol. The guy’s voice gets louder, louder, the sound of footsteps starting on the stairs, and he’s just about to call out “She’s not fucking down here, man,” when Tommy slips down the last few stairs and lands on his ass at their base.

He’s up before he thinks about it, leaving the bourbon on the side table and his cigarette butt ground out in the ashtray as he stalks over there to see if the guy is ok. The guy looks ok. Staring up at him in a drunken blear, and who knows what the fuck it is, but for a moment he feels— _something_. Maybe it’s sympathy but who knows. Honestly it’s not like he likes Tommy or even sees him as a friend or anything. Kid’s kinda _parasitic_ , hanging off whoever’s strongest. Or at least that’s the way it seems to him. Tonight though— tonight _he’s_ feeling _weak_. So, yeah, he holds out a hand to help the dick up, but Tommy just stares at it.

‘You’ve got hands like Richie Lewis,’ the other guy says, still frowning at his hand. ‘I fucking hate Richie Lewis.’

‘Who the fuck’s Richie Lewis?’ he asks, pulling his hand back and trying to bite down the urge to lash out in offense for no good fucking reason. Who the fuck cares if he’s got hands like some dude he’s never even met before? Nothing wrong with that as far as he can tell.

Tommy doesn’t seem to be paying him any attention, just frowning miserably at nothing and still flapping his gums. ‘—fucking hate his hands in particular. Asshole. Meatheaded douchebag. Six-foot fucking _two._ Just because he can— can— it’s not like I don’t know what was going on. _Looking_ at him. Fucking— his dad’s _useless_ , you know—’

‘Richie Lewis’ dad?’ he asks, not sure he even wants to know. What he wants is to be left alone until he can work out what to do next. How to handle everything that’s happened.

‘ _Of course not_ Richie Lewis’ dad!’ Tommy snaps at him as if he’s an idiot. Starts to piss him off. Piss him off even more— the guy continues, ‘Richie Lewis’ dad is _Joe Lewis_ —’ as if that fucking means anything. He kind of gives up at that point, heads back to the chair where he was sitting, but of course Tommy _keeps fucking going_. ‘Of course he can’t do anything because no one ever taught him and he’s fine if you teach him but he’s fucking _stupid_ if he has to read anything for himself so of course his dad has to get someone in for _everything_ — and fucking _Richie Lewis_ of all— Fucking. _Moving furniture, fixing the sink, installing the new dryer,_ doing whatever fucking _yard work_. You don’t have to take your shirt off in winter, you know. _Douchebag_. _I_ could fix a sink if I had to. _I_ could help him move furniture. _I’ve_ got strong hands too—’

‘What the _fuck_ are you fucking talking about?’ he snaps. ‘You’re giving me a fucking headache. Is this about Cheryl? The two of you have been fighting all the time recently.’

‘ _Carol,_ ’ Tommy corrects automatically. It’s a pity she’s not around, she’s almost amusing when he gets her name wrong deliberately. All puffed up and pissy— ‘No it’s—’ the guy trails off, then seems to deflate, listing sideways against the wall at the base of the stairs. ‘Fuck. I don’t know. I hate this fucking town.’

‘Yeah,’ he sighs, fishing out his almost empty pack of cigarettes. ‘Me too.’ He lights one, considers offering one to Tommy, but decides against it. For a moment they sit in silence, him smoking, Tommy— doing whatever it is. Fucking _sulking_ at the bottom of the stairs he fell down.

Maybe he should use this opportunity to get some advice. Not, you know, advice about the Mind Flayer issue, but who to talk to about the Mind Flayer issue. He sure as shit can’t decide. He’s even been reconsidering talking to Wheeler. She seems smart. Harrington’s not, and fuck knows about Byers.

‘If you had to talk to either Wheeler, Byers or Harrington about something serious, which one would you pick?’

Tommy glares at him, blearily. Drunk. The other guy’s drunk. Drunker than he’s managed even with half a bottle of bourbon. Maybe he’s been drinking too much recently. ‘Why the fuck would I have to talk to any of those three losers?’

‘I don’t know, I’m not asking you like it’s something real, but make believe something happened and they were the only three you could tell, who would you choose?’

‘Not Nancy fucking Wheeler, that’s for sure,’ the other guy snaps, then hisses out, ‘ _Bitch_.’

‘So Byers or Harrington?’ he asks.

‘Byers beat Stevie up, you know?’ is apparently Tommy’s best answer to _that_ question.

‘So did _I_ ,’ he points out, then wonders why. It’s better if he just doesn’t think about that night.

‘Yeah—’ Tommy says, voice quiet. ‘I saw what you did after— If things were the way they’re supposed to be you and me would have a problem because of that, but—’ the other guy lets out a small laugh, weird and bitter sounding. ‘Have I ever told you how grateful I am you decided to be such a dick to him?’

The already weird vibe around Tommy recently just seems to be just getting weirder. It’s like walking into a conversation that’s already been going for a while and no one catching you up. Things are hanging around _unspoken_. ‘Why the fuck would you be grateful about that? Thought he used to be your friend.’ The “before you started being such a dick to him yourself” goes unspoken.

‘Yeah, but— you’ve _seen_ you, haven’t you?’

‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ he demands, but Tommy doesn’t answer. Just gets pensive.

He takes a swig of the bourbon, waits to see if Tommy’s going to explain himself. He wants to get angry, is getting angry— but he fights it down. There’s no point getting pissed with a brainless, spineless, dickless jackass like Tommy H. He reminds himself that.

After a few more swigs and half his cigarette the other guy suddenly starts talking again. ‘Stevie, I’d talk to _Stevie_. No matter what it was he’d try to help.’

‘Unlike Wheeler or Byers?’

‘Wheeler’s a bitch,’ Tommy reiterates, ‘and Byers is a fucking _psycho_ or something. No. Stevie is who I’d pick—’ and then, ‘As if he’d ever want to talk to me again.’

‘Yeah, well that’s your problem and not mine,’ he points out.

Tommy lets out a bark of a laugh, then drags himself finally to his feet, starting up the stairs with the reminder of, ‘He’s not gonna wanna to talk to you either. He might be pissed at me, but he’s _scared_ of you.’

The thing is— the prick might just have a point. After all, Harrington quit the team after that night, stopped showing up at any parties, any social events, stopped even eating _lunch_ in the school cafeteria, just— well, he didn’t _vanish_. He was still around. He still went to class, still _barely_ passed, still walked the halls, but the brown-haired boy avoided him like the plague.

That night. That night he— yeah, he’s got a bad temper, yeah, he can be a mean bastard just like his old man, yeah, he can lose it— but that night might just be the closest he ever came to killing anyone.

In _this_ life at least.

He doesn’t want to think about the other one.

He doesn’t want to think about hurting Harrington like that either.

Doesn’t want to think of all his reasons, such good reasons at the time— all rubbish. All bullshit. He also doesn’t want to think that Harrington hasn’t met his gaze since that night, that those brown eyes have been hidden and shuttered from him, heavy lids and long lashes obscuring them every time he’s tried to—

What? Tried to what? Sneak a glance in the hope that Harrington’s forgotten, forgiven, that the other guy suddenly isn’t a walking, talking reminder that he’s a rotten apple sitting at the base of a rotten tree.

Fuck it.

He grinds out his cigarette, swigs some more bourbon. He should try to get some sleep— he’s got as much chance of getting it here as he does at home. Fucking Neil’s got to be pissed at him by now. Staying out all last night, not coming home in the morning, and then if he shows up stinking of booze and with a wrecked car— If he has to deal with Neil he’d rather do it sober. Actually, he’d rather not have to do it at all.

He dreams about the kid, the girl, _El_ , padding nervously across the shag carpet, getting closer, closer, closer, standing over him. She looks down at him, a puzzled frown on her face, before her head suddenly jerks up. His head does the same. Then it’s the two of them, both of them, looking at the _other him_ , bruised and bleeding and oozing black and _furious_.

El vanishes.

The other him snarls, **_‘Get your fucking shit together asshole!’_**

He wakes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: for homophobic slurs- in particular Billy using the word "faggot." Also for Billy using "pussy" as an insult. If I've missed any please feel free to tell me.
> 
> Thank you all for the comments and kudos, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

_He wakes._

He feels like shit. Like the hangover’s just setting in. Kind of seedy and tired and like the grime at the heart of him has oozed out and is contaminating his whole body—

Fuck that melodrama.

He pries himself off the recliner, eyes the inch or so of bourbon still in the bottle, and lights up his last cigarette as he staggers up the stairs to find the bathroom for a piss and some aspirin, then the kitchen for some water and some coffee.

As he passes the bodies of other sleeping teens he’s momentarily grateful that none of them came downstairs to bother him the night before. Maybe that prick Tommy told them not to, who knows. He finds the girl he was making out with the night before asleep in the bathtub, cradling the mostly empty bottle of Talisker against her chest. He ignores it, her, turning his back on her as he pisses unsteadily into the toilet, dropping the butt of his cigarette into the water before flushing. Fuck he feels _awful_.

His chest hurts, right over his heart, like something was burrowing into it. Like the _monster_ was burrowing into it. The Mind Flayer— He pulls the neck of his shirt down, looking for any sign, but the skin there is still smooth and unblemished.

He fishes through the amazing collection of benzos in the medicine cabinet for what he’s after, shaking three aspirin out of their bottle and swallowing them dry before staggering to the kitchen. 

He finds Carol standing in the kitchen in only one of Tommy’s t-shirts, hovering impatiently over the coffee machine. He grunts at her as he fetches a glass from the cupboard, gulping down two glasses of water in quick succession. When the coffee’s done she pours him a cup too. He takes it, grateful. For a moment he thinks her eyes linger on his hand as well, an unhappy crinkle between her brows, pursing her lips, then she shrugs. ‘You look like shit,’ she says.

‘So do you,’ he points out. She does. She looks tired and unhappy and deflated— What she said about him is equally true though, the him he saw in the mirror looks almost as bad as he feels, papery shadows under his eyes, a sickly pale and flushed pallor to his face— He’d bet he stinks too. Old sweat and smoke and bourbon. He’ll need to get cleaned up if he wants to go talk to Harrington.

So it is Harrington. He’s made up his mind.

She shrugs, then drifts out of the kitchen without even a goodbye. He gulps the coffee, grabs his keys from his pocket, and heads out into an ugly, grey day. It’s late enough that his old man should be off at work by the time he gets back, but just in case he stops on the way to buy some more cigarettes and then smokes two anxiously outside the house before he goes in. Even though Neil’s car isn’t in the drive.

He’s also kind of— like. _What’s he going to wear?_ He doesn’t want Harrington to freak out and run away the moment he shows up or anything, so he’s gotta try and come off as— as— Well. Not _him_. Yeah? Like, he can’t go in there all leather jacket, jeans and swagger— He’s got to seem— seem—

_Nice._

Or at least _nicer._ How do you seem nice though? Without looking like a pussy at least? Fuck if he knows.

Eventually he drags himself out of the car and inside, being as quiet as he can in case this is some fucked up kind of trap his dad has set— wouldn’t be the first time. It’s not. Neil’s not here. Susan’s not here. _No one’s here._ Where the fuck is Max? She better not be at Sinclair’s—

He’ll worry about that later. Maybe if he buys her some condoms and makes a big deal out of handing them over she’ll get so embarrassed she won’t let Sinclair do anything that might require one. That might be an idea—

_Later._

First he needs a shower. Showing up stinking of sweat and bourbon and way too many cigarettes is hardly going to seem _nice._ He should shave too— clean up the edges of the rockin’ facial hair he’s trying to cultivate. Fucking Harrington’s such a fucking _preppy_ little shit— Driving around in that fucking _beemer_. Big hair. Pastel colours. All clean shaven and big, pretty smile—

Fuck that. Just because he has to dress to seem nicer doesn’t mean he has to dress like that kind of faggot. He’s still him— he’s.

In the shower he tries to practice what he’s going to say, but it all comes out wrong. Stilted. He tries “Hey Harrington!” and “Harrington, I mean _Steve_ , could I talk to you for a moment” and “Steve, hey, I just need a word—” before it devolves in his head into, “Harrington, look you pussy little bitch I’m not going to punch you again OK? OK. Now I just gotta talk to you about—”

Fuck. Fuck. He’ll wing it. It’ll be fine.

It’s not like it then takes him a good twenty minutes to work out what to wear. Not at all. Most of his clothes are— well, they’re _not_ nice. Nice is not the image he ever wants to give off. _Cool_ , yeah. Cool and _manly_ , the whole _bad-boy_ kind of schtick— but not _nice_. The _nicest_ shirt he has is that fucking blue one he can remember wearing around to Heather’s before he— So. _Not that one_.

In the end he finds a plain white t-shirt and decides that will have to do. T-shirt, jeans, his boots— The whole vibe is kind of James Dean/Marlon Brando/classic rock and he can live with that.

Then he has to fix his hair. Is his hair too intimidating? His is a truly _epic_ mullet, he knows that, but should he be approaching Harrington with epic hair? Harrington’s hair is pretty epic though, in its own way. Big and soft looking, for all the product he must use in it. So. Yeah. Mullet’s probably fine— if only he could get that curl at the front to lay right. He fusses at it for a bit, turning his head this way and that until he’s satisfied, then sprays it in place.

He steps back, looking himself over in the mirror. He looks good. Clean, nice but not _too nice_ , like himself, not like a _pussy_. He still looks kind of tired though, the shadows still there under his eyes. Does he still stink? He probably still stinks. He can’t show up to talk to Harrington smelling like a distillery or the other guy isn’t going to take him seriously. Will think he’s drunk and babbling bullshit.

He grabs for his Paco Rabbane aftershave, knowing that it’s not a perfect solution, but as long as Harrington doesn’t get _too_ close— He’s must be operating on automatic, because after he’s applied it to all the places he should be applying it before going to have a friendly chat with a guy he once beat senseless, he splashes some more on his hand and shoves it down the front of his jeans, freezing with his fingers tangled in his pubes. He stands there, palm cupped over cock and balls, brain racing. _What the fuck is he doing?_ This is _date night_ prep. _Has he lost his fucking mind?_

Actually, yes, he probably has. It’s the stress of everything that’s happened, that’s all. He’s not thinking straight. He pulls his hand carefully out of his pants and creeps off to the bathroom to wash it before he heads out. No way is he greeting Harrington with dick-stink all over his palm.

He lights a cigarette on his way to the car, eyes catching resentfully on the damage the Mind Flayer left on his baby. He’ll need to get the windshield replaced in the least. Fuck. Hopefully there’s somewhere cheap in town, he doesn’t want it eating into his savings. _Fuck!_ He forgot to call in sick at the pool—

Oh well, he’ll have to deal with it later. It’s not like he got in any trouble last time around.

As he pulls away from the house he’s almost grateful for a moment that Tommy and Carol’s hysterics have let him know Harrington’s working at the mall. He thinks maybe he sees Max coming down the street towards the house as he speeds past, only having a moment to think _shit, that’s El_ , before he’s turning the corner and heading to Starcourt. _Harrington._ That’s who he picked.

Harrington.

He smokes another couple of cigarettes once he’s gotten parked, feeling all kinds of jittery. It’s just— he doesn’t want Harrington thinking he’s crazy. He can’t say why that is, it’s just— he just. _Doesn’t_.

He wants the other guy to respect him— but that’s not that weird, is it? Once upon a time ol’ Stevie was a big shot, at least at Hawkins high. No new king wants the old kind looking down his nose at him— mind you most new kings are only kings because the old king is dead.

Eventually the promise of rain and the promise that it’ll utterly fucking _wreck_ all the time he spent on his hair drives him out of the car and into the mall. Noisy, busy, bright, stinking, _awful_ place. What a fucking _temple_ to capitalism. The moment he steps inside his skin starts crawling. Memories start tugging on his mind— it’s something though that there’s a distance to them, as if they happened years ago instead of shortly in the future and to another version of _him_. If they were as strong as his _own_ recent memories he thinks maybe he wouldn’t be able to do this. Be here.

Fuck. He’s turning into such a pussy.

Anyway, takes him longer than he’d like to find his way around, work out which ice-cream shop Harrington’s probably working at, then find the fucking place. Then Harrington’s not there. No one’s there. He frowns, looks around, spots _blue_ out of the corner of his eye—

That’s not— _Is it?_ That’s one of those shitty kids Max is always hanging around, and that’s a girl wearing an equally fucking _ridiculous_ uniform, and Tommy did say Harrington was in a sailor suit.

He starts forward, cautiously approaching the three in the middle of the food court. There’s no way that’s Harrington— Like, yeah, long and lean body shape checks out, mass of fluffy brown hair checks out, the slightly nervous way he’s holding himself checks out— but no way _Harrington_ would let himself be seen in something like that— shorts and knee-high socks and— and—

‘What the _fuck_ are you wearing?’ he demands when he’s close enough the other guy can hear, ‘You look like some faggot’s wet dream—’

Harrington whirls around and goes pale, taking one, two little steps backwards until he runs up against the edge of the planter in the middle of the food court, half sinking into a sit before visibly making himself stand tall. ‘Hargrove,’ he acknowledges, voice wary.

He feels a whirlwind of— _something_ , swirling around inside of him. Some emotion, _emotions_ , but he can’t work out which ones. Mainly he feels _bad._ Guilty or something— not what he wants to feel.

The kid, whatever his name is, starts squawking— something about him not being allowed to be here and to leave Harrington alone and if Max finds out—

‘ _Dustin_ ,’ Harrington says, which doesn’t make the kid shut up but does make the kid start squawking at him instead. Fuck is that kid loud. Harrington’s starting to squawk back at the kid, though quieter and obviously uneasy, dark eyes glancing his way worriedly. The girl with them is looking at all of them funny at this point, and he can feel an entirely unwanted blush prickle across his skin at the thought that it’s not just her, it’s probably half the mall, and they’ll all be looking at him dressed up so he looks _nice_ and trying to talk to—

‘ _Harrington!_ ’ he snaps, momentarily silencing both him and the kid. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘No you don’t,’ Harrington replies.

‘ _Yes_ _I do_ ,’ he insists, already feeling his temper fray. This was probably a mistake. He should have picked Byers or something.

‘No, really, you don’t—’ Harrington begins and then, when he tries to reiterate that, _really_ , he _does_ , talks over him with, ‘—look, if this is you trying to apologize, then really you don’t have to, I started—’

‘I’m not trying to apologize,’ he snaps, regretting it a little when something in Harrington’s face gets even stiffer, when his body seems to sink even further into itself.

‘Oh,’ he hears, barely more than a whisper. ‘Ok then. Well— We’re just going to—’ Harrington gestures at the ice-cream shop and starts inching away.

He grabs the other guy by the arm before he can get far, tugging a little at the same time he leans in, so his face is right next to Harrington’s ear. He hears the kid squawk even louder. Feels Harrington tense up, the other man’s breaths coming quick and jerky.

Part of him notices how nice Harrington smells, sweet but not girly, kind of dry and a little spicy, some cologne or aftershave that must be new, is probably expensive, that he hasn’t smelt on anyone before. It’s not really the kind of scent he expected— The rest of him is too preoccupied in saying, voice low, breath teasing the hair by the other guy’s ear, ‘You may think I’m nuts or whatever but something really fucked up happened and— and— _look,_ have you heard of the gate? The Mind Flayer?’

He feels a quiver run through Harrington before the other guy lets out a forced sounding laugh. ‘You been talking to Max?’

He pulls back to get a read on how Harrington’s reacting and sees fear. Fear in the pallor of the other’s skin, in the look in those brown eyes, in the way Harrington’s holding himself— oh, the brunet’s trying to hide it, trying to act like nothing’s wrong, but he’s not fooled. It’s different too, different to the kind of fear Harrington shows when the other sees him.

It’s funny—

Hah.

Hah fucking hah hah.

_Maybe he’s not actually crazy_.

‘ _Hargrove_ ,’ Harrington sounds like he’s coming from somewhere very far away. ‘Hargrove—’ the other guy repeats, before suddenly Harrington’s right in his face and there’s hands on him, helping him, guiding him until he’s sitting on the edge of the planter, and it’s like all the fight’s gone out of him. He slumps in his seat, then finds himself looking up, staring at the ceiling, staring—

He can remember dying here. This is where he died. _He died_.

‘ _Hargrove!_ ’ Harrington’s voice comes loud and real close up. The other guy is leaning over him, looking concerned. Actually _concerned_. Actually all up close to him even though he—

‘We’re all going to fucking _die_ ,’ he finds himself bleating, and it must be the tone, or it must be the look on his face, or it must be _something_ — because all of a sudden Harrington is grabbing him by the arms, pulling him to his feet, and _dragging_ him towards the ice-cream shop.

‘Come on,’ the other is saying, ‘If we’re gonna talk about this stuff we gotta do it somewhere private.’

Which is how he finds himself sitting at the table in the back room of _Scoops A’hoy_ — fucking stupid name if you ask him— and telling a version of what happened to him, the accident, being grabbed, the other him telling him what to say— and maybe he leaves some of it out. The memories. What the other him did. The way he _died_ — but that shit’s too personal to share so easily.

Then, of all fucking things, Harrington tells him a story of his own. The gate. The Demogorgon. Demodogs— He can tell that the other guy’s holding stuff back, sentences started and then not finished, a kind of worried, constipated look on his face as he’s obviously overthinking everything he says— and there’s no mention of _El—_ but he can’t really be pissed about it since he didn’t exactly tell _Harrington_ everything— he is kinda pissed about it though, but he keeps trying to reason with himself as much as possible.

Harrington’s pretty much done with the story when that squawky kid is suddenly shoving his head through the windows from the front of the shop and demanding Harrington tells the story properly. The two start squawking over each other about being able to over-hear anything anyone says back there from the front of the shop— _the kid_ — as well as how much Hopper would want Harrington telling him— _Harrington_.

_Then_ , the kid’s letting out an even louder squawk than usual before getting dragged into the room by the girl in the sailor suit. ‘ _Robin!_ ’ Harrington squeaks.

‘He just said you can hear everything from the front of the shop Dingus,’ she snaps. ‘So did you forget I was still here?’ and then, before Harrington can do more than babble an incoherent attempt at an explanation, ‘I’m going to need you to fill me in, _properly_ , because if the three of you aren’t just bullshitting _this_ sounds like way more than just evil Russians.’

What?

_Russians_?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: For homophobic language, people speculating about Will Byers sexuality, and references to child abuse and domestic violence. Also underage drinking and smoking. If I've forgotten any please let me know. 
> 
> Ok, so the next few chapters will be mostly Steve free, but trust me when I say when they're done there'll be a lot more Billy and Steve interacting. If anyone wanted more Billy and Max interacting in season 3, boy do I have the chapter for you- Anyway, thank you all so much for reading, and the comments and kudos!

What do you know, there’s fucking evil Russians involved.

_Why is this his life_?

He’s not allowed to smoke in the back room of the shop while Harrington paces back and forth trying to get the fucking _Chief of Police_ on the phone. Instead, in between failed calls, the guy goes out into the shopfront and brings him back this fucking ship shaped sundae that’s apparently called the _U.S.S. Butterscotch_ and expects him to eat it. ‘You’re getting twitchy, it’s making me nervous,’ Harrington says when he just stares at the other guy incredulously.

Fucking _nervous_.

It’s actually pretty fucking delicious. Not that he’s going to admit it.

The girl, _Robin_ , has been left in charge of the shop, the squawky kid has gone off and is apparently trying to contact the rest of Max’s loser friends, so that just leaves him and Harrington— and the _U.S.S._ fucking _Butterscotch._ He feels—

Actually he has no idea how he feels. Kind of like punching someone, but there’s no one around he can hit. Where’s Tommy when you need him, hey?

Fucking _Chief of Police_.

He’s seen the guy around town. Big guy. Real _big_. Big fists— probably packs a hell of a punch. Small-town cop too, so probably not too bright. Punch first, ask questions later kind of guy. Or _shoot_ first. The kind that’d come ‘round his friend’s place and drag him home if he’d skipped out for a few days after fucking Neil beat the shit out of him. The kind that’d call him a runaway and lecture him the whole drive back like he should be sent to _military school_ for _disrespecting_ his old man.

He’d kill for a goddamn cigarette about now.

After a good half an hour of Harrington getting nowhere the guy gives up with a sigh, hanging up the phone and slumping into the seat across from him. If there was any of the _U.S.S. Butterscotch_ left he’d nudge the plate over and let Harrington have some, but, you know— _delicious_. So he just sits there. Awkward.

Everything is awkward.

‘You’re going to have to go find Hopper and tell him what’s up,’ Harrington says eventually.

Well, there goes his blood pressure. ‘What?! No! You do it!’

Harrington gives him a _look_. He’s not sure what it means, whether Harrington’s annoyed with him or sorry or what, but what Harrington says is, ‘I _can’t_. If the gate’s under the mall like you said then the Russian broadcast Dustin intercepted’s got to have something to do with it. There’s no way there’s _both_ evil Russians and the gate hanging around in the same place for no reason— it’s too much of a coincidence.’

‘So go find this Hopper guy and tell him about it.’

Harrington shakes his head, ‘If the gate is open we can’t waste time. _You_ go find Hopper— me and Dustin will stay here and use the Russian broadcast to try to work out how to get to it so we can tell Hopper when he gets here and he can tell the military or whoever and _they_ can deal with it.’

‘Yeah, but he’s not exactly going to believe _me_ , is he? He doesn’t know me,’ he points out.

Harrington seems to waver for a moment before shrugging it off. ‘He will. I’m sure of it— you just have to tell him what you told me, ok? And not like— try to _punch him_ , or anything. He’s a good guy, Hopper.’

It’s fucking _laughable_. What’s more fucking laughable is that he agrees to do it— actually, the most laughable thing is that Harrington doesn’t even fucking know where Hopper _is._ He suggests trying the station and then says something about the Police Chief having a cabin somewhere, but he doesn’t know where it is even though he’s got the phone number, and after the squawky kid shows up and gets interrogated about it apparently _he_ doesn’t know either, but they both think one of the other kids should be able to help him. ‘Mike,’ is Harrington’s final suggestion, ‘ _Wheeler._ Mike Wheeler. He’s kind of— like, kid’s kind of a pain in the ass but his girlfriend is Hopper’s daugh—’ then the guy trails off with that guilty look that says he thinks he’s said too much.

_El_. His mind supplies for him. Police Chief Hopper’s daughter is El.

So he heads out, leaving behind Harrington arguing with that Robin chick about whether she’s going to be helping him and the squawky kid find the gate. He says “no,” she says “yes.” His money’s not on Harrington.

It’s raining when he leaves the mall, lighting up the moment he’s back in his car. Smoking for a minute before he starts the car in the hope his hands will stop shaking. Fuck. Police Chief. Big fucking _fists_. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck—

Ok. Ok. He’s just a nice boy trying to do his civic duty, no reason to beat him up, lock him up, tell his dad he’s been acting out, that he needs more _discipline_ — Fuck. He is not a _nice_ boy. He doesn’t even really look like a nice boy. He glances at himself in the rear-view mirror, taking in the sodden curls of his mullet— not a nice boy at all. He is so fucked.

He tries the station first, but no Chief Hopper, then— no way is he going around the _Wheeler_ house again, not after— with _Karen_ — but he doesn’t have to, does he? He saw El earlier, with Max, heading to his house.

On the way he starts thinking what he’ll say to her. Should he tell her what happened? He can remember her, remember her from last time, trying to _hurt_ her, and the way he could feel her there, in his mind— and the smell of the sea and the sand and his mom’s perfume suddenly rises up to choke him. He has to pull over.

He sits, lights another cigarette, tries not to think.

There’s not _time_ to think. The gate’s open. The Mind Flayer’s loose.

He starts the car again, forcing his mind away from anything that hurts. Instead he focusses on Harrington’s cologne, the sweet, warm, _welcoming_ smell of it, the taste of the _U.S.S. Butterscotch_ , the way the other guy had reached out and helped him even though Harrington has every reason not to—

Max and El are sitting in the lounge watching the TV when he walks in. He opens his mouth, intending to say— _something_. Something pertinent to the situation at least, but what comes out isn’t anything about gates and Mind Flayers and Hoppers, but, ‘Have you seen the uniform they’ve got Harrington wearing? It’s fucking _obscene_. I bet every pervert faggot in the whole of Indiana is lurking around in that mall jizzing themselves every time he walks past.’

‘Oh my God,’ Max sighs, rolling her eyes. ‘No, Billy, he _hasn’t_ said anything about you. _Yes_ , he’s doing better. No headaches or anything. _No_ , I don’t think he’s going to want to be your friend, like, _ever_.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he snaps.

Apparently Max thinks the appropriate response to his question is, ‘Why don’t you go lie down, ok? and I’ll make you a toasted cheese when you sober up a bit.’

‘I haven’t been drinking!’ he snaps.

‘Yeah, right,’ she gives him a flat look, ‘Then why are you asking about Steve?’

—

—

Just—

_What?_

‘I don’t ask about St— _Harrington_ when I’m drunk!’ He doesn’t. He has no memory of doing so. Like, _ever_ — ok, maybe once or twice, but that’s _it_.

Her look gets even flatter, if at all possible. It becomes the _flattest of all flat looks that has ever existed in this universe_.

The situation is going to escalate. He can feel it escalating. _He’s_ escalating. Except then El is tugging on Max’s arm and asking, ‘What’s a faggot?’ in a quiet, hesitant little voice and he feels himself deflate.

He can remember wanting— no, _needing_ to kill her. He can also remember needing to _save_ her.

‘It’s a really mean and horrible and nasty thing bigots say,’ Max is telling the other girl, ‘and you shouldn’t say it. _Ever_. But especially not in front of Will, ok?’

‘Who’s Will?’ he demands. ‘He one of Harrington’s friends?’

‘ _Oh my God!_ ’ Max huffs again. ‘No. He’s one of _our_ friends. One of the ones I told you to _leave alone_ , so don’t go giving him shit if you see him, ok?’

‘Because he’s a faggot?’ he asks, just to be sure they’re on the same page about what he’s not allowed to give the kid shit for.

‘I don’t know, maybe,’ Max replies. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

El is frowning at the two of them, ‘But what _is_ a— a—'

‘ _Faggot?_ ’ he asks. El nods.

Max gives him a censuring _look_ , before addressing the other girl, ‘It’s a really mean word for a boy who likes other boys,’ then, when El frowns and seems to be about to ask something else, ‘ _like_ likes, like you like Mike, or I like Lucas—’ at that she gives him a warning look.

‘Oh,’ El says, then thinks for a moment before asking, ‘So boys can like other boys? What about girls? Can they like other girls too?’

Max nods. ‘Boys can like boys. Girls can like girls. And you can like both— I mean, I _think_? Don’t they say Freddie Mercury is a bisexual?’

‘Who’s Freddie Mercury?’ El asks.

‘Can we just _fucking stop talking about this!_ ’ he snaps as Max starts to explain Queen to the other girl.

‘No one asked you to be part of this conversation,’ she hisses back at him. ‘Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be at the pool or something?’

‘This is _my_ fucking house too—’ he snarls, before remembering why he actually is here. ‘Look. Shit. Sorry— _Sorry_ , ok? I need to find Police Chief Hopper, do either of you know where he is?’

‘Why do you need to find Hopper?’ Max demands.

‘Because Harrington fucking told me to find him!’

‘Why were you talking to Steve?!’ she shrieks, ‘If you were bothering him—’

‘I wasn’t fucking _bothering_ him!’ Fuck she is _pissing him off._

‘I bet you were. You should just leave him alone Billy, he doesn’t want anything to do with you—’

‘I _wasn’t_ — I don’t want anything to do with him either! He’s a _loser—_ ’

‘He is _not_. You don’t know anything about him!’

‘ _There’s nothing to know!_ ’ he roars, ‘He’s just another empty-headed preppy loser _bitch_ who’s never had to work a day in his life because daddy’s rich and he can spend the rest of forever living off his fucking _trust fund_ —’

She blows out a breath, sounding disgusted, ‘You sound just like your dad.’

‘I DO NOT SOUND LIKE FUCKING _NEIL!_ ’

‘YOU DO! YOU SOUND _EXACTLY_ LIKE HIM!’

‘ ** _STOP SHOUTING!_** ’ El shouts over them both.

They turn their heads to look at her as one. She’s upset, he can tell she’s upset, eyes looking a bit watery, a bit red around the edges, a stubborn look on her face— one he recognizes. Not the _him_ him, but the him of the other version, the him of last time. Fuck, now he feels guilty. ‘Sorry,’ he mutters at the same time as Max, their tones almost identical.

‘Now,’ she says after a moment of silence, her voice still a little stilted but her face still stubborn, ‘Why do you need to find Hopper?’

He’s going to tell them. He realises before he even opens his mouth— there’s no way around it, not now Max knows something, anything. She’s stubborn. She is, and so is _El_ if he’s remembering right. Still, before he ruins their day too, he heads for the fridge, pulls out a beer as they trail him, looking at him with serious eyes.

Fuck, since when did he care about making the world worse for Max? For _anyone?_

‘You want a beer?’ he asks them, ‘Actually no, better not,’ he glances at El, ‘Your dad’s the Chief of Police and I don’t need to piss him off right now.’

He takes a swig of the beer as they just frown at him, before Max says, ‘You’re acting funny. What’s wrong?’

He snorts out a laugh. ‘So much, so fucking much— Anyway. I’m guessing the two of you already know about the gate, the Mind Flayer?’ He watches it sink in like the world’s suddenly in slow motion, the fear rising in their eyes. ‘Yeah, well the gate’s open and the Mind Flayer is loose and Harrington’s sent me to find Chief Hopper.’

Then, of course, he has to explain everything again— still abridged version. No way he’s telling these two poor kids what really went down last time around, what he _did_ , the way he died on the floor of the mall hoping like hell Max could hear him apologizing, that she could bring herself to forgive him— it’s fucking _traumatising_ , and that’s just for him.

The problem with explaining everything is then the two of them insist on coming with him to help find Chief Hopper— but at the same time it’s probably a better idea. The guy’s not going to do anything to him in front of two little girls, is he? Or at least not in front of his _daughter_. If the guy does he’ll know exactly what kind of man this Chief Hopper is, yeah. Know and know to—

What?

This isn’t Cali. He doesn’t have friends here. Not _real_ friends.

Anyway, they all pile into his car— Max being cool enough to hiss and commiserate when she sees the damage— and then they head off to Hopper’s cabin, El guiding him from the back seat where she’s sitting with Max. After driving for a bit he hears her whisper to Max, ‘See, I told you something was wrong. The— _other him_ —’ before Max shushes her.

He ignores it. She’s got _powers_ or some shit, he knows that, so who the fuck knows what they’ve been telling her about him— Hopefully not the truth though. He doesn’t want her knowing what his hand around her throat feels like from her side any more than he wants the memory from his. It’s pretty faint, that memory, the Mind Flayer in complete control at the time, and the stronger it was the less immediate the memories left behind. That’s something at least. Isn’t it?

There’s no one at the cabin, surprise surprise. What did he expect? After all that time Harrington spent calling— ‘Where to now?’ he asks El.

She glances at the television for a long moment, and he’s just about to ask her if she, what, just wants to _stop trying to find her dad in the middle of this minor apocalypse and watch some Looney Tunes_ when she looks back at him, a little helpless. ‘He might be at the Byers’?’

So, great, back to that creepy shithole.

He flaps at the girls until they get back into the car then heads back into town. In the back seat he hears Max whispering to El, ‘Do you think you could? With the rain?’

A pause and then the reply of, ‘No. I don’t think so—’ and then, ‘Should we tell Mike?— should we tell _Will_?’

‘No—’ in the rear-view mirror Max looks uncertain for a moment, before her expression firms up. ‘No, we can handle this. Find Hopper— he knows how to contact the military, doesn’t he?’

El nods, ‘Yes.’

‘So he’ll contact the military and _they’ll_ deal with it. It won’t be up to us, not this time—’

There’re questions he kinda wants to ask, see if he can fill in a bit of everything Harrington left out, but at the same time he’s not sure he wants to know. How long has Max been out there, fighting shit like the Mind Flayer? It’s fucking _dangerous_ , she could have _died_. What the fuck is the military doing if they’re still letting this shit run around loose in small town America? In fact why is this shit getting loose in the first place?

Fuck.

Find Chief Hopper first, ask questions later.

Chief Hopper is not at the creepy Byers place. Chief Hopper is also not at Mrs Byers workplace—which is their next suggestion— though neither is Mrs Byers. Chief Hopper doesn’t seem to be anywhere in town.

It’s fucking _annoying_. They drive around for what seems like forever, his temper fraying, his packet of cigarettes emptying, Max bitching him out about how he’s going to get lung cancer and _die_ — ‘Yeah, well we’re all gonna die of something,’ is what he tells her, trying not to remember how it felt.

She keeps bitching at him and he knows, just _knows_ , any second now he’s going to lose it and start screaming back at her, so he pulls over, sits behind the wheel, grasping it tight with his hands, trying not to—

Max falls silent.

‘Food,’ he grits out eventually. It’s mid-afternoon and he missed lunch. In fact all he’s eaten today was the fucking _U.S.S. Butterscotch_. Maybe he’s just hungry. Maybe Chief Hopper will be lurking around in the diner, pigging out like some lazy-ass caricature of a cop. ‘What do you little shitbirds want to eat?’

After a moment El tentatively suggests ‘waffles.’

He’s about to argue, because that’s not exactly _real food_ , but— ‘Sure. Fine. Whatever. I’m not your parents so who fucking cares. Waffles it is.’

Max starts making some noise about not having enough money, which makes him groan. ‘Jesus fucking _Christ_ , I’m fucking paying, ok? Stop _whining_ about everything.’

He gets a burger, because by this point he feels like some red meat, and watches the two of them chow down on a positively _grotesque_ mountain of waffles, whipped cream, syrup, and ice cream— all topped off with a sickly red cherry that he can’t stop himself from pinching. It crunches wrongly between his teeth, just like the ones from the _U.S.S. Butterscotch_. What the fuck are they made out of? Fruit should not have that texture. He wonders if Harrington sneaks them sometimes, his lips have got that kind of colour, you know, more a coral red than a pink—

He slaps at Max’s hand as she starts stealing his fries and dipping them in the mess of cream and ice-cream. ‘Get your own,’ he tells her when she pouts at him and tries to steal another one. ‘ _Get your own!_ ’

‘You get them, you’re paying,’ she points out. ‘And milkshakes. We should get milkshakes to go. I’m thinking if we find Will’s mom we might find Hopper, he’s—’ she sneaks a glance at El, who is glancing from his fries to the plate of waffles and back again, a longing expression on her face. He nudges them over so she can steal one, watching her dip it into the melting ice cream and pop it into her mouth as Max continues with ‘—he’s got like this massive crush on her he won’t, like, admit. It’s kinda sad, but also pretty funny.’

They can’t find Mrs Byers either, Hopper or no Hopper. Not that they have any idea where she might be other than _places they’ve already checked_. Not a great suggestion Max.

They drive around town in the profoundly shitty weather until it gets dark and find absolutely no one they’re looking for. Eventually they decide to go back to his and Max’s house and try ringing around again, but again, no luck.

There’s still time, he keeps telling himself that. The weather’s shit and they’ve had no luck so far, but surely in the morning—

Susan comes home from work in the middle of all this and starts cooking dinner, seeming pleased Max has actually got a friend around for once— not to mention that he and Max aren’t screaming at each other right now.

He starts to tense up, waiting for his dad to get home. Ah shit, all he can do is hope Neil doesn’t go full— _Neil_ in front of El. Maybe if he introduces her as the Chief of Police’s daughter before his old man can even open his mouth—

Of course Susan waits until dinner’s actually on the table to tell them all daddy fucking _dearest_ is working late, _again_. There’s a look on her face, all pinched and kind of sad, that says she’s starting to worry her husband’s cheating on her. What can he say? Neil probably is. The old man lives by the rule of _double standards_.

He hasn’t hit Susan yet, as far as he knows— mainly because she’s pretty meek and seems to know how to keep her mouth shut and live her life revolving around her man— but at the same time it is only a matter of time. He’s never been sure what he’ll do when that happens if he’s around to see it. He doesn’t _like_ Susan, and not just because she’s not his mom— she’s _weak_ , as he sees it. He has no idea how a woman like that could be mom to a girl like _Max_ — Still—

Still—

He’s never liked seeing women, girls, whatever, getting hurt by men. _Pisses him off_. Funny, considering all that stuff with Max, but the way he used to see it— back before _Harrington_ , and the dose of cold water that turned out to be. As much as the tranquilizer and the bat almost to the balls if he’s entirely honest— either _he_ got her under control or his old man was going to, and he could trust himself to break her _stuff_ , not _her_ , but Neil. Neil’s fucking _Neil_. It’s like when his dad finally snaps and starts taking whatever’s wrong with him out on Susan. What’s he gonna be able to do about it? He’ll just get his face beat in. Again.

After a surprisingly comfortable dinner he has to go out to get some more cigarettes. Shit. He is turning into more than a pack-a-day man right now. It’s the fucking _stress_.

Anyway, he goes out, gets a carton this time, and as he’s pulling to park in front of the house he sees her, just standing there, in the rain, watching the house— curly hair slicked down, white blouse going translucent so he can see her bra underneath. For a moment he’s not sure who it is, but as he gets out of the car she turns to face him.

_Heather_.

He calls out her name but her expression doesn’t change. She’s pale— he can see that in the lights shining out the front windows. Pale and lifeless and _wrong_. He steps back, instinctive. ‘You’re—’ he whispers, then clears his throat. ‘It got you? How?’

Last time it was _him_ , he brought her to it. How did it get her this time? _Why_ did it get her this time?

She blinks, _slowly_ , then steps towards him before stopping, a frown scrunching her brow, ‘You’re not a good host. I don’t know why I know but I do know. _You’re not a good host._ ’

A drop of rain hitting his eyelashes makes him blink, and when he opens his eyes she’s not there. He whips around, eyes searching, before he finds her sprinting up the street away from the house, moving too fast, almost _inhuman_.

‘Fuck,’ he hisses out.

Ok. Shit. _What?_

Does this mean the Mind Flayer has its memories from last time too?

No— No—

Heather said she didn’t know why she knew—

Heather.

_Heather_.

Grief and guilt and rage rise up inside of him. Fuck. Fuck—

He’s gotta try and save her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: For a mention of child abuse.
> 
> Slightly shorter chapter this time, but the next one should be a bit longer. I hope you're all having a good weekend, and staying warm/cool depending where you are. Thank you all for the encouraging comments and kudos, I'm glad you're enjoying the story!

It’s Susan that eventually comes out to find him sitting under the meagre shelter of the front steps, smoking, trying to stop shaking. ‘ _Billy_!’ she gasps, ‘You’re soaked through—’ she trails off, standing over him, _looking_ at him. ‘Did something happen?’

‘I just got some bad news, that’s all Susan,’ he tells her, giving up and getting to his feet.

‘ _Bad news_?’ she asks, paling, and he realises she thinks he’s talking about Neil.

He finds himself rushing to reassure her, ‘A friend of mine, that’s all. Did something _stupid_.’

She relaxes a little, ‘Is he going to be ok?’

‘ _She_ ,’ he shrugs, ‘Don’t know yet.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she says, and he thinks she actually means it. ‘You should come in and dry off. I’ll make you a hot chocolate— or a beer, would you prefer a beer? We just won’t tell Neil.’ Not like at least half of the beer was paid for with _his_ money. Fucking Neil.

‘Beer sounds good Susan,’ he says, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the night and following her inside.

Max and El poke their heads up from where they’re sitting in front of the TV like a pair of meercats when he walks in. The smile on Max’s face falls when she sees him, and he sees her exchange a _look_ with El as he walks past to his bedroom.

He kicks off his now completely sodden boots, the movement reflecting in his full-length mirror. He stops. Stares at himself, this melted, dripping, _farce_ he constructed to go talk to Harrington. Fuck he feels tired.

After changing into sweats and a muscle t he leaves his room in search of that beer. Susan’s been nice enough to pour it out into a glass, which she hands over with the slightly pained smile that’s the best he’s ever gotten out of her. ‘Thanks,’ he says, taking it.

‘I think I’ll have an early night,’ she says, both to him and the girls, ‘I thought I might read in bed for a while. You can come and get me if you need anything.’

When she’s gone he drains the beer then slumps onto the couch next to Max and says, ‘New plan shitbirds. Tomorrow you two are going to keep trying to find Hopper, I’ve got something else I need to do.’

Apparently him simply telling them what they’re going to do isn’t good enough, because it starts Max alternately questioning him and bitching at him and no amount of increasingly loud repetitions of “ _Because I said so!_ ” seems to make her stop.

In the end it’s El’s quiet question of ‘Did something happen when you went out earlier?’ that shuts them both up.

He groans, gets up and fetches another beer, then turns and looks at them, looking back at him all innocent and expectant from the couch. He hates this. This is not fair. _Why is this happening to him?_ He doesn’t want this kind of responsibility.

‘Look, a friend of mine, _Heather’s_ , been got by the Mind Flayer, ok? And I need to save her— but I can’t look for Chief Hopper and save her at the same time. So that means I need someone else to find him, you get it?’ 

‘Oh my God Billy you _can’t_!’ Max yelps at him, ‘Not alone— That’s so dangerous! How are you even going to try and save her? Do you even know how to un-possess someone who’s been possessed by it?’

‘Heat,’ he replies, _remembering_. Remembering too the way they’d locked him in the sauna— It was actually a pretty good plan, if only they’d managed to keep him inside for just a little longer. If only he hadn’t been able to escape— maybe things wouldn’t have ended like they did— only. _Was he even really still human at that point?_ He’s already been chowing down on all the cleaning chemicals he could get his hands on. Would he have died anyway if they’d managed to free him then— will _Heather_ die if he does the same to her. No. _No_. He’d been ok at the end, before the Mind Flayer ran him through. He’s sure he was ok— and yeah, maybe he was bleeding black, but— If he gets her to the hospital straight after surely she’ll be ok? Won’t she? And anyway, he knows he’d rather have died there and then than go on to do any of what he did after. ‘There’s a sauna at the pool, I’m gonna try and trap her in there and burn it out of her.’ Admittedly stealing their plan, but they don’t have to know that.

‘Did the other you tell you that too?’ El asks, frowning at him.

‘Yeah,’ he replies, hoping it’s convincing, hoping the remembered terror and guilt isn’t showing on his face.

Max seems to be thinking, which isn’t a good sign. ‘The pool will be open, won’t it?’ she asks, and then, before he can answer, ‘and you can’t exactly lock her in the sauna with everyone else around, so you’ll have to wait until everyone goes home, right?’

‘ _Yeah_ ,’ he replies, cautiously.

‘So why not we all try and find Hopper in the morning then get together at the pool and try and save Heather later?’

‘No!’ he snaps. ‘I don’t want you involved, you could get _hurt_.’

‘It’s hardly the first time I’ve fought things from the Upside Down,’ she scoffs. ‘I’ll be fine,’ then a glance at El, ‘ _We’ll_ be fine. El can help. She can fight.’

‘I said _no_ Max,’ he insists, then ‘What else have you fought? Harrington wasn’t exactly clear on the details.’ Of the kids’ involvement at least. He knows Harrington fought a _Demogorgon_ — whatever the fuck that is— with Byers and Wheeler, but when the other guy was talking about Demodogs it was always “we.”

‘Probably because you came and beat him up in the middle of it,’ she scoffs.

‘The fuck does that mean? Are you telling me this bullshit was happening on _that_ night?’ Harrington didn’t mention anything about _that_.

She nods, looks at him like he’s an idiot, ‘ _Yeah_. Like, El and Hopper were closing the gate and Mrs Byers and Jonathan and Nancy were trying to get the Mind Flayer out of Will, so Steve had been left taking care of us. We wanted to go down into the tunnels—’

‘ _What tunnels?_ ’

She gives him a funny look, ‘What exactly did Steve tell you?’

‘Not very much I’m guessing,’ he sighs, annoyed. ‘Really just about the Demogorgon, and the gate being open, and fighting Demodogs before the gate was shut last time.’

‘He didn’t tell you about me?’ El asks, voice quiet.

He shakes his head. ‘No, I think he thought your dad wouldn’t want him to.’ Even though he already knows about her.

She nods, looks down. ‘It’s my fault the gate was open the first time—’

At which Max starts arguing that it wasn’t, and then excitedly telling him all about El, or at least what she knows, and getting corrected here and there by the girl herself, until he knows about her being an experiment, knows about this Doctor Brenner, knows about her opening the gate, knows about Max’s shithead friends finding her and taking her in, knows about everything that happened after. At the end of it he can’t help thinking that the Doctor sounds like a real piece of work. Like his dad with more brain cells and an actual education. The man sounds like a fucking _monster_. He tells her the latter, Max agreeing loudly.

‘So, anyway, the _tunnels_ —’ Max starts, confusing him for a split second before he remembers. She tells him about the kids wanting to go and set them on fire as a distraction but Harrington saying no— which sounds really fucking sensible to him— before _he_ showed up, beat Harrington unconscious, and then Max and her fucking shitty friends bundled Harrington into _his_ car and drove the poor guy out there anyway. No amount of her crowing about how their plan worked is enough to change his opinion that, ‘That was a fucking shitty plan Max. You all could have died. _You_ could have died. **_Harrington_** could have died.’

‘ _None of us died_ , Billy,’ she says, sounding like a complete shitty little smartass. 

‘ _That time_ ,’ he tells her, ‘Which is why you are going to go looking for Chief Hoppper instead of putting yourself in stupidly unnecessary danger.’

‘But—!’

‘Do I look like _Harrington_ to you?!’ he snaps. ‘Am I unconscious and unable to stop you from doing something stupid? No? Didn’t think so. I said _no_ Max, and that’s final—’ the last is said in a rushed whisper, the sound of familiar footsteps on the front steps dragging both his and her gaze to the door. Fucking _Neil_.

‘ _Final_!’ he repeats one last, hushed, time, before getting up, gesturing to her room. She gets the picture. Remaining quiet as she leads El to her room as he’s scurrying off to his own. When he’s sure Neil asleep he’ll creep out to brush his teeth etc. but there’s no way he wants to run into the old man right now. It’s going to be hard enough saving Heather without bruised ribs.

Fuck.

_Heather_.

It’s so fucking _unfair_.

She’s— she’s actually a really _nice_ girl. Tries to pretend she’s not, but he’s seen the way she is whenever one of the stupid kids at the pool actually does do something to get themselves hurt. She’s kind and patient and _gentle_ with them. Ungrudging about it, even if she just told them not to do whatever it was they then proceeded to hurt themselves doing.

She’s cute too. Hot. Not as hot as Karen Wheeler, but she is hot. _And_ she’s into him— hard to deny that. They made out for a bit at one of Tommy and Carol’s interminable parties, before she started going on about wanting to be a physiotherapist and he realised she wanted a bit more out of the encounter than a warm body to rub up against for the night.

He’d had to let her down, felt almost bad about it. Said it was because they worked together— kind of true, too. He doesn’t want anything more serious right now and she’s not exactly the type he would want something more serious with even if he did— not that he’s sure what that type _is_ — and it’s not like he wants some jilted girl hanging around him in the one place in Hawkins fucking Indiana he actually likes.

Now he feels almost guilty. But it’s not like he can _make_ himself like someone, is it? It’s not his fault she’s not his type.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think there are any trigger warnings this chapter, but please let me know if I missed any.
> 
> I've got a better idea of where I'm going with this story now, so I'm thinking this fic in the series will probably be mainly a series 3 rewrite and for things that happen after the end of series 3 I'll probably start a new one. Anyway, thank you all for the comments and kudos, and for reading the fic in the first place! Another fairly short chapter I'm afraid.

In the morning he lurks in his room until he hears his old man and Susan leave, going to have a piss and lighting a cigarette before calling for Max. ‘Max! Max! You still here shithead?’

He hears her footsteps pounding on the floor before she slams open her door and hisses ‘Shh!’ at him.

‘What?!’ he snaps at her. He can hear the sound of static coming from the radio in her room. What the fuck is she up to?

‘El’s using her powers to find Hopper,’ she tells him.

—

—

—

‘ _WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T SHE DO THAT YESTERDAY?!_ ’ he whispershouts at her.

Max shrugs, ‘We didn’t know if she was supposed to use them around you, but then we, you know, told you about them so—'

‘I _already knew_ shitbrain!’ he snaps.

‘Oh.’

A moment later El appears behind her, wiping at the blood dripping from her nose. ‘He’s at the cabin with Mrs Byers,’ she says.

‘Great. Ok Great!’ he snaps, telling her to, ‘Give him a ring and tell him what’s happening so I can go save Heather.’

She nods and goes over to the telephone and he gets to watch as she stands there, holding it, with _nothing fucking happening again_. ‘He’s not answering,’ she says.

‘Ok,’ he says, huffing out a breath. He’s still in his sweats, they’re both wearing some of Max’s pyjamas. ‘O—K— Everyone’s going to go get dressed and then we’re going to go out there again, tell Chief Hopper, then I’ll leave you two there with him while I go save Heather. Sounds good?’ then, before they can answer, ‘Sounds good. Chop-chop. Get going.’

He stalks back to his room and gets dressed quickly, lamenting the lack of shower or time to do more than run a comb through his hair and grimace at the mess left behind by yesterday’s rain drenched hairspray. He looks— Well. Like shit. But he can get himself sorted out properly later. A splash of Paco Rabbane and his sneakers instead of his still sodden boots and he’s ready to go.

‘You two better be ready!’ he bellows as he leaves his room.

‘Just a minute!’ Max shrieks back. ‘Oh my God!’

‘One minute, that’s all Maxine—’ he begins, before, ‘Shit! Please tell me Susan fed you before she left?’

‘Ah, _no_ ,’ Max replies, sulking out of her room with El right behind. ‘No she did not.’

This is how he ends up trying to balance a cup of coffee between his knees, an Eggo waffle in his mouth, and a cigarette in one hand as he pulls away from the house. In the seat behind him the two of them are eating more Eggo waffles smothered in syrup as carefully as they can— considering he warned them he’ll fucking _murder_ them if they get sticky shit all over the leather seats.

Not seriously, of course. It just came out. He felt a bit— _weird_ after. Even though it’s something he’s said to Max a million times before, still, that was _before._

When they get back to the cabin Chief Hopper isn’t there. Again. _Jesus fucking Christ_.

‘I’ll find him,’ El says, calm and determined and far too grown up for such a small kid. Ok, teenager. But still— _kid_. Too young to have to deal with this shit. Hell, _he’s_ too young to have to deal with it, so that must mean she’s _eons_ too young.

Maybe everyone’s too young.

He watches her blindfold herself and sit so calmly in front of the white-noise of the TV and feels kind of sick. She should be careful. _He_ — the other him— no, the _Mind Flayer_ , he could see her in there.

It doesn’t take long, soon she’s saying ‘He’s in his truck with Mrs Byers— _He’s hurt_! I think someone might have hit him—’

‘Is he hurt bad?’ Max asks.

‘No,’ El replies, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Where are they going?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know,’ she answers, reaching back and removing the blindfold. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s ok kid,’ he tells her as she wipes the blood dripping from her nose.

He drives them back to his and Max’s and leaves them there while he goes to the pool to see if Heather’s come in. Like he did, last time, before the sauna— Before he goes he tells them to try and find Hopper, _not_ to try and find Heather when El suggests it— explaining that the Mind Flayer will be able to sense her there, that it might _hurt_ her— and not to use her powers too much. ‘You might get burned out,’ he says remembering last time, ‘and if everything goes wrong you’ll need them to protect yourself, to protect Max. So be careful alright, _both of you_.’

When the fuck did he get so domesticated?

Heather did come in, bundled up like he was last time, trying to hide from the sun. She looks sick. Sweating and pale and _wrong_ , and when he walks past her too close he can smell the eye-watering stink of ammonia.

Fuck

Ok. How’s he going to do this?

Pretty much the same way as the kids did it last time, but _better_ , so she can’t get out. He scurries around getting everything ready— the benefit of working here means that as long as he walks with purpose no one questions why he might be carrying chains or metal pipes or bolt cutters. Also, you know, the sauna’s off the weight room, so there’s plenty of stuff there that might help.

The only thing bothering him is _how_ he’s going to lure her in there, but turns out not to be a problem, since the moment everyone else has left she comes to find him while he’s still in there, puzzling over the problem. ‘How did you know?’ is the first thing she asks, the second being, ‘Why do I know you’re not a good host?’

Now that the moment’s here it all seems like it’s happening too soon. He’s not _ready_. He has no fucking clue what to do next—

No. He does. He’s just got to get her in the sauna.

Good thing he had the door open when she came in, examining it, trying to work out a better way to secure it than what the kids had managed. Unfortunately he’s now between her and it, and she’s getting closer, and it suddenly occurs to him that even if the Mind Flayer thinks he’s a bad host that’s not going to stop it trying to _kill_ him.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he says, stalling for time. He steps sideways, hoping she’ll mirror him, so he can sort of waltz them back around so she’s the one in front of the sauna. She seems— pretty far along. Not much of even a mask of humanity left.

Fuck. He wasn’t that bad last time, was he?

A frown appears between her dark brows. ‘Why do I know what it feels like to be inside of you?

Well. _That_ is not a question he’s ever heard before or particularly wants to hear ever again. He starts babbling some bullshit, trying to play it off, acting like he has no idea what’s going on here— all the while circling round, round, round, until—

It’s now or never.

He lurches forward, planting his feet, slamming his palms onto her chest just above her tits, and _pushes_ her as hard as he can. He’s _strong_ and even though she’s possessed by the Mind Flayer she’s small, thin, so she goes flying backwards into the sauna. The next few seconds are a panicked blur as he pushes the door shut and chains it in place, before grabbing everything he can to prop up against it in the hope it’ll help.

‘Billy!’ she calls out as he cranks up the heat. ‘Billy! What are you doing?!’

Oh fuck. She sounds like _her_ , not like _it_.

‘It’s ok Heather,’ he calls to her. ‘It’s ok. I know it hurts but you’ve just got to wait it out, ok? It’ll be over soon.’

‘Billy, _please_ ,’ she wails, ‘This isn’t funny!’

‘I’m not fucking laughing, am I,’ he mutters under his breath.

He can see her start to beat at the door, but this time nothing in there’s damaged, so it should be ok. She shouldn’t be able to break the glass. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

She looks so _scared_.

_Did he look like that?_

He can remember crying, apologizing, calling for Max— but the memory is faded, weak, the Mind Flayer using his body, his _memories_ , making a _puppet_ out of him. 

‘Billy!’ she cries out. ‘ ** _Billy_**!’ she _screams._ Then the begging and the crying start and he tries so _hard_ not to listen, especially once she starts wailing about her parents. Well fuck. It’s not so much they seemed _nice_ — her dad had seemed like more than a bit of a _dick_ to be honest— but they seemed, what? _Normal?_ Not bad enough to deserve what seems like it’s happened to them. Again.

A moment later she starts throwing herself at the door.

He starts backing up. He doesn’t _mean_ to, it’s just— all of a sudden he feels almost like he’s standing outside himself. Like sometimes, when his dad gets real _mean_. Or when his dad used to hit his mom. Or when he’d realised what he’d done to Harrington.

It’s not going to hold, he can see that now. Wishful fucking thinking. It’s not going to hold and there’s _nothing_ he can do to stop her when she gets out. He’s completely, totally, utterly _helpless_ —

The door gives way and between one blink and the next she’s on him, hand around his throat, backing him up against the wall and _lifting_. He fights, struggles, fists beating at her grip on him, her arm, her face, anything he can reach.

_He’s going to die_.

Then her other arm moves, strikes before he even sees it, _slams_ hard against his chest over his heart and it’s like everything just—

_Stops_.

—

‘ _What the fuck are you doing now?_ ’ he hears from somewhere very far away. The voice familiar. _Frustrated_. His own. ‘ _I didn’t give you this chance just so you could— could—_ ’

It all starts again. He sucks in a breath, feels something _uncrunching_ in his chest, then his body moves even though _he’s_ not the one moving it. His fist strikes out, slams heavily against the joint of her elbow and it gives, it _bends_ wrongly to the sound of _snap_. The bone giving way. She drops him, arm hanging awkwardly from her shoulder for a moment, before wriggling, shifting, reforming. She goes to strike again and—

She _shrieks_ as she’s lifted, propelled away from him to bang into the wall, El and Max and all the rest of their shitty friends— other than the squawky kid— pouring into the room. El moves to fling Heather into another wall and he croaks out ‘No!’ voice suddenly his again. She hesitates.

Dragging himself to his feet he tells her, ‘Get her back in the sauna. It was working, that’s why it attacked. We just have to find a way to block the door so she can’t get out.’

El nods, gesturing so Heather goes flying through the air back into the sauna, and then with the other hand so the door slams shut. He looks around wildly as Heather bangs on the glass, leaving black smears. It’ll break, he knows it’ll break— If it breaks the heat will get out. It’ll all be for nothing—

The exercise mats. He lurches over and grabs some, Max rushing over to help when she sees what he’s up to. Together they drag the stack over to the door and push them over the glass just as it starts to crack, then hold them in place, the other kids coming over to help, El still using her powers.

Heather starts screaming again, the mats shaking as she rams herself against the door behind it. Her screams get more and more desperate. Fuck. Fuck. The sound’s fucking _awful_.

He can see Max beside him, her eyes grit shut, what looks like tears welling beneath her lashes. His heart is thundering in his chest. His breaths keep catching. It’s unbearable. He has no idea how he keeps doing it.

Then something changes in the tone of her screams and one of the other kids is shouting ‘It’s him! He’s out! Everyone _get down_!’ and they all drop to the floor without thinking as a cloud of black— _something_ comes pouring out through the broken sauna window to swirl around the room, before fleeing out the open door.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: For some use of homophobic slurs and mentions of child abuse. As always please tell me if I miss any.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, for leaving comments and kudos!- and now on to the next chapter-

He breathes. Just for a moment. Then Max is batting at him and saying ‘Get off me, asshole,’ and he realises that when he dropped to the floor he must have instinctively covered her or something, because he’s now squashing her. He rolls away, then rolls to his feet when he remembers, ‘Heather.’

Behind him he can hear the kids squawking at each other, but his main concern is pulling the drooping pile of mats away from the door and rushing to her side. She does not look good. She looks _dead_. And for a moment he thinks she is, but when he touches her he can feel her heart thundering beneath her overheated skin.

‘Heather?’ she doesn’t wake. ‘Heather?— Shit!’

‘Is she ok?’ Max asks from behind him.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, scooping up the unconscious girl. ‘I think we’d better get her to the hospital.’

Of course he can’t fit himself, the unconscious Heather, Max, El, and three of Max’s stupid friends in his car, so he’s forced to do something he very much does not want to do— agree to let Max and El ride back to the Wheeler house through the streets, at night, on the backs of Sinclair and the boy Wheeler’s bikes. ‘Get either of them hurt and I’ll fucking _break_ you, _both_ of you,’ he tells the boys, and then ‘ _You_. Stop doing stupid shit,’ to Max and ‘ _Rest_ for fuck’s sake,’ to El.

He watches them off from the rear-view mirror as he drives away, Heather lying across the back seat. The stink of chemicals coming off her is so _strong_ — fuck. She’d better not die.

_She’s going to die, isn’t she?_

He speeds to the hospital, spinning the lie he’s going to tell them in his head the whole way. He’s obviously been beat up, so he can’t say he just came in to check on the sauna and found her like that. An intruder? Knocked him out and when he came to she was trapped in the sauna? Fuck. Is that believable? That doesn’t seem believable. He hopes the fact that he’s wearing nothing more than his pool uniform shorts and sneakers will add some credence to the lie.

Only— when he pulls up to the hospital and goes to get her out of the car he realises nothing hurts. A quick glance in the car’s side mirror and he can see he’s unmarked, even the bruise around his throat gone. Fuck.

Well, that’s something to worry about later.

When he carries her in he goes with his original idea. Closing down the pool after everyone had gone home, went to check the weight room and sauna, found her trapped inside, the door chained shut. He adds that when he busted it open he could smell ammonia, maybe other chemicals, in the hope that if she does have some kind of poisoning that will lead them down the right track.

As they take her away they tell him he’ll have to wait, to talk to the cops first, and then _insist_ so when he tries to leave. Fuck. Ok, yeah, this might be a way to get a chance to talk to Chief Hopper— but why does he suspect that it won’t be that man who shows up? Just some other small-town pig with even less brain cells, who’s gonna be even less help with the whole Mind Flayer situation.

Ok. Ok. Yeah— he’ll just wait until everyone calms down and forgets him, then he’ll make his escape.

He tries to make himself invisible— letting his body language soften up, hunch down, like when he’s trying to appease Neil, the fight gone out of him already, instead of holding himself tall and proud and strong like he likes too. It’s hard, because— not to be vain or anything— he’s a good looking guy, and feeling beat up— even if he doesn’t look it— and feeling like he hasn’t slept at all in the last week, and feeling kinda strung-out and desperate for a cigarette, a shower, a mirror, some hairspray and maybe half a bottle of bourbon doesn’t change that. Any more than it changes the fact that he’s a good looking guy standing around with his _shirt off_.

Eventually the gazes his way lose some of their edge, his presence loses its novelty, and new emergencies arrive to distract the staff with blood and tears. While everyone’s attention is on a kid that’s come in with his parents looking like he’s broken the fuck out of his leg he drifts away, further into the hospital. He’ll find one of the other doors, make his way out there, where no one will know about Heather, let alone the fact that he’s supposed to be talking to the cops.

As he’s walking the halls it occurs to him that he should have yelled at Max for disobeying his orders and putting herself in danger like that— except she _saved_ him, and that seems kinda ungrateful. What are they going to do? He’s got this horrible feeling that they’ll have to deal with the Mind Flayer and the gate without either Chief Hopper or the US Military— which kind of sucks, to be honest.

They need a plan. They need the “they” in question to be more than him, Max, El, and three boys. Three loud and annoying boys from what he’s seen— actually, no, _two_ loud and annoying boys and a quieter and possibly _queer_ one. Honestly, so far he likes the queer boy better than the other three of Max’s male friends— Squawky included. The queer one is at least less _annoying_.

Harrington, he’ll have to go fetch Harrington. Harrington and Squawky and then— _Wheeler?_

What the fuck is she doing here? 

She’s standing in the hallway, frowning, biting her lip, her attention all on whatever that commotion is in the room closest. Ok. Yes. Now he has a plan.

‘Wheeler!’ he calls out.

She freezes, turning towards him with those big, sad looking eyes that Harrington must’ve once pined over. Might _still_ pine over. ‘Hargrove,’ she says cautiously, and then corrects herself to, ‘ _Billy._ Is there something you wanted?’ Fuck she’s chilly. He has no idea what got Harrington so hot for her. Not even his own short, sad, sexual obsession with her ever really made sense to him.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Look, I know you know about this shit, so I’ll just say it straight out. The gate’s open, the Mind Flayer’s out there possessing people, and none of us can get a hold of Chief Hopper— so at this point I’m thinking it’s probably going to be up to us to deal with it. It’s probably best if I go fetch Harrington and that Squawky kid, you get Byers, and then we all meet up— at your place I guess, since that’s where the kids are heading— and make a plan. Sounds good?’

‘Wha—? Um—’ she blinks those big, big eyes at him.

‘Ok. Good. See you there,’ he tells her and strides off, ignoring her calling after him.

It feels good, having a plan. Not much of a plan, but a plan.

He makes it all the way back to his car before realising that going to fetch Harrington means seeing Harrington, more importantly Harrington _seeing_ him— he looks like _shit_. Oh fuck. Oh— ok. He has a change of clothes in the car— mainly in case he needs to stay away from the house for a few days because Neil’s in a _mood_ — so he doesn’t have to show up at the mall in just shorts and sneakers, but he still hasn’t had a shower today, or even a dip in the pool, so he smells of sweat and new Paco Rabbane cologne over old Paco Rabbane cologne and beer and cigarettes and his hair is a complete— he glances in the car’s side mirror. It’s a write off. It’s _wrecked_. His beautiful, glorious, _epic_ mullet is a sad, deflated mop of stringy curls. Also he hasn’t shaved. His face is a mass of blonde stubble obscuring the lines of his moustache and soul patch.

He looks like a bum.

Jesus _fuck_ is Harrington going to judge him.

He climbs into the backseat to get changed into the jeans and black muscle t— because he doesn’t think getting his dick out in the hospital parking lot is a good look— then climbs into the driver’s seat and spends a couple of minutes desperately finger combing his hair, fluffing it up at least, even if it still pretty much looks like lopsided shit at the end. ‘Oh my God,’ he moans, resting his head on the steering wheel for a moment. ‘Why is this my life?’

He lights up a cigarette before starting the car and heading towards the mall. Harrington better still be there— he has no idea what he’ll do if the other guy isn’t. Where does Harrington live? Fuck. He has no idea. He’ll have to either go back to the Wheeler house empty-handed to ask his address or find Tommy H. and fucking Carol at whatever party they’re at and hope the two are sober— and cooperative enough— to answer the question.

It does not look promising when he gets to Starcourt. There’s a lot of empty parking spaces and the building itself looks— well, it’s all lit up still, but none of that seems to be shop lighting. The cinema and its entrance are still open though, even if the other doors are shut, so he makes his way in that way then slips out of the crowd and heads straight for Scoops Ahoy.

The blinds are drawn and the shutter is down, but the place is still lit up, so he starts banging on the metal grill and bellowing ‘You here Harrington!’

He hears noise, voices, so he keeps it up.

Eventually a very unimpressed looking little black girl appears, wearing a helmet and knee pads and— what the fuck? ‘I’m supposed to ask if you’re Billy Hargrove,’ she states, not _asks_.

‘Yeah, yeah I am,’ he frowns at her. ‘Who are—? _Nevermind_. Let me in, I’ve gotta talk to Harrington.’

‘I’m _Erica_ ,’ she says, looking even less impressed, ‘He’s not here right now.’

‘Well _where is he_?’ he demands, only as he does he can hear Harrington’s voice squawking indistinctly out of— her helmet?

She rolls her eyes and says, ‘He says to tell you he’s on the roof and then to ask you if you talked to Hopper.’

‘What the fuck is he doing on the roof?’ he asks, and then, more importantly, ‘No. I’ve been over this whole fucking town at least three times and none of us can find him, so now—’ fuck is this awkward, trying to talk to Harrington through the intermediary of the least impressed little girl he thinks he’s ever met. ‘Look, tell him to come here so we can talk about it.’

A moment later there’s more indistinct Harrington squawking and she’s saying, ‘He heard you. He said he can’t right now since we’re in the middle of Operation Child Endangerment—’ at that there’s some more, protesting, squawking, ‘—so if you want to talk to him you’ll have to go there.’

He has so many questions right now, but he gets the impression this little girl isn’t going to be the best one to answer them, and not because she _can’t_. Shit. He is reluctantly impressed by her attitude. ‘So how do I get there?’ he asks.

This seemingly simple question seems to prompt a massive round of squawking, not just from Harrington, but also the squawky kid and what sounds like the girl in the sailor suit, all arguing with each other about the best directions to give, Erica looking increasingly annoyed and eventually joining in the argument until somehow everything smooths out and he’s given a set of directions they all agree on.

He lights up another cigarette on his way there, fluffing a little hopelessly at his hair in the hope it’ll stop looking like what he knows it looks like. Why’s he so worried? Harrington still spends his days going around wearing that fucking _sailor suit_. At least he’s not that much of a faggy looking loser.

That faggy looking loser looks over at him with a hesitant smile as he steps out onto the roof, then waves him over, even though the squawky kid starts protesting again.

He feels— _something_. He just doesn’t know what it is.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Some contemplation of homophobia and violence, hints at child abuse, also a touch of internalised ableism. As always please tell me if I miss any.
> 
> Her we have a stroll through Steve's mind while he's waiting for Billy or Hopper or anyone to show up. To be honest I like the idea of Steve I've read in a few fics of the home cook, so there's some of that here- I thought I'd just say the stuff with Nancy mentioned in relation to it is a misunderstanding in case you think I'm bashing her. Thanks as always for reading! I hope you enjoy.

There’s a surprising amount of waiting involved in this whole saving the world/defeating evil Russians/finding the gate business he’s got going on. He’s been left out the front, slinging ice-cream, while Dustin and Robin go over the plan with Erica yet again, ironing out the details and trying to work out what supplies they need. She keeps calling it “Operation Child Endangerment”— cute. That’s cute. Actually not cute at all, but no one wants to listen to him and his opinions about the matter right now so it’s probably best to stay silent. She’s— actually she is not a sweet kid, but the thought of Lucas having to deal with having her as a sister is kind of amusing.

Waiting is hard. Boring. Waiting and keeping his attention on the here and now seems downright _impossible_. His thoughts keep wandering. Wandering where he doesn’t want them to too— so that’s not great.

He still hasn’t heard from Hargrove, or Hopper, and it’s looking like they might be getting close to finding the gate— or at least a way to wherever it actually is— or a weapon to use against the Mind Flayer— there has been a lot of debate about what exactly is in that storage room and those boxes ever since they discovered the place.

He has no idea what they’re supposed to do if they find the gate before Hopper shows up. He hopes like hell Hargrove actually went to talk to him and didn’t just— It’s probably wishful thinking. Why should he expect Hargrove to do anything _he_ wants the guy to do?

It’s not like the world hasn’t already gone nuts— the whole— well, all of it. Demogorgons and Demodogs and Gates and him becoming a complete loser— but now Billy fucking Hargrove is involved and—

The way the guy has just swaggered up to him, had declared for everyone to hear that he looked like a “faggot’s wet dream”— what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Nothing good, he’s sure of that.

It’s not just that it was— Well, it was a very Billy Hargrove thing to do, wasn’t it? Cocky, arrogant, keen to _humiliate_ — and it did leave him feeling humiliated, but it also left him feeling— is _exposed_ the right word? Kind of like he was being skinned alive in public.

Bad enough actually having to deal with Hargrove, but for the other guy to then say _that_ of all things.

And it’s funny too, in the way things are when they’re not remotely amusing— if Hargrove knew even a handful of the things he’s done with Tommy over the years— not to mention that last thing— then—

Well. In the least Hargrove would laugh at him and call _him_ a faggot. More likely though—

The other guy would have a second go at killing him— and probably succeed to. Imagine that. _Here Lies Steve Harrington_ — cause of death: Billy Hargrove finding out he once sucked a cock.

His dad would probably shake the other guy’s hand, thank him for getting rid of his disappointment of a son— unless his dad was in that mood where he’s the older man’s property— and no one else is allowed to mess with his dad’s property. Then he wouldn’t like to be Hargrove.

Anyway. It’s not like it matters, because Hargrove doesn’t know, or else he’d already be dead or in a coma, so the best thing he can do is to stop thinking about it.

It’s _hard_ though. Like, ever since he sent Hargrove off to find Hopper this kind of nauseating _worry_ keeps popping into his mind— and it’s not like he has that much mind to begin with, so he’d rather be able to keep it all absolutely, one-hundred-percent, focussed on the task at hand. Russians. The gate. The Mind Flayer—

Oh God, his life is such a mess.

It’s not just worry about Hargrove finding out certain _things_ about him, but also just Hargrove being near anywhere him in general. He does not want to be trying to save the world, or defeat some unknowable evil, or whatever it is that’s _actually_ going on, with Billy Hargrove. He likes his monsters easy to spot coming, thank you very much. Not that Hargrove is exactly a _monster_. It’s just—

That temper. The fact the other guy _hates_ him.

If he hadn’t seen how scared Hargrove was he’d almost think the other guy had overheard something stupid the kids had said and had decided to mess with him. But Hargrove had been scared. Or— was _scared_ the right word? It’s hard to imagine Hargrove being scared of anything. Freaked out maybe. _Spooked_. Certainly _something_ enough for the other guy to let _him_ help him to a seat. Even though, as stated, Hargrove _hates_ him—

And the way Hargrove had said “We’re all going to die”— no, “ _fucking_ die,” that’s right— well. The guy had sure as hell convinced him there and then.

So he’d brought the other guy back to the shop, heard him out, and then done his best to fill in some of the blanks without letting anything _too_ sensitive slip. Because, you know, Hargrove is _Hargrove_.

Dangerous.

After the guy had left he’d let Dustin convince him to tell Robin a more complete version of the story— admittedly in his case because he’d been hoping that if she knew more she’d be less eager to help. Not that he’s not grateful for her help— fuck, without her help they would have gotten precisely _nowhere_ — but now that he knows what it is, knows that it’s far more dangerous than just _evil Russians_ , he’d rather she was somewhere far, far away. Somewhere safe.

See, he’s coming to the conclusion that Robin is basically _awesome_. He just doesn’t want to let on to Dustin, because Dustin seems to think that just because Robin is awesome he should be _dating_ her.

He’s not sure he’s ready to date someone else. Not that he’s still hung up on Nancy, except that he is still a bit hung up on Nancy, but he also feels like— actually, he doesn’t know what he feels. _Confused_ for one.

Robin is pretty and funny and smart— so smart— and— She should be an obvious choice, yeah? And he likes spending time with her, _really likes_ spending time with her, that’s important in a relationship, isn’t it? Only—

That little something isn’t there. That _spark_. He isn’t actually attracted to her— which isn’t to say she’s not attractive, because she is, he can _see_ that just looking at her. He just doesn’t _feel_ it.

Hanging out with her almost feels more like hanging out with _Dustin_ than anyone else. Not like hanging out with Tommy and Carol— for obvious reasons. Or with Nancy. Or with anyone else he ever hung out with— mainly because he was never very close to any of them. If anything they were more _Tommy’s_ friends or _Carol’s—_ or girls he’d slept with or wouldn’t mind sleeping with or was sleeping with on and off at the time.

In fact, before Dustin— and the other kids— he’s never really been close with people without there being a sexual element to it— other than his parents, of course. Not that he’d necessarily call that _closeness._ He did think he was close to his granddad when he was younger, you know, spending time in person and talking on the phone— but apparently the old man put in a quiet word with his dad that he was being a pain, and then his dad not so quietly informed him of the fact, so he does his best not to bug the old man now.

Anyway, it’s not like not being entirely attracted to someone has ever been a real barrier to having sex with them. _Good_ sex too. Fun sex. He’s had plenty of sex with girls that he thought were cute, kind of hot, but didn’t really— He didn’t run _hot_ for them, if that makes sense.

Not the way he ran hot for whatever it was between him and Tommy and Carol— or the way he runs hot for _Nancy_.

Admittedly not at first. At first he just thought she was cute and nice and smart and an image of a kind of _good girl_ full of the prospect of domestic bliss he’d suddenly found himself reaching for— but then he got to know her, and when he got to know her—

She’s _tough_. She’s tough, and for whatever fucked up reason that really does it for him.

Like, there is probably something wrong with him. Ok, no, there are definitely a myriad of things wrong with him, but there’s this thing that he’s been thinking about for some reason since Hargrove showed up.

Not the— 

_Tommy_ thing. The thing Hargrove would kill him for. Though that’s been on his mind too. But also—

Like, the way he knows Nancy can hold her own in a fight— or at least as much as any of them that aren’t actually _El—_ still really does it for him.

Even if they’re, you know, _split up_.

And she’s with Jonathan now.

And when things go down it’ll be _Jonathan_ she’s standing in front of, defending— not that she ever really stood in front of him— at least he doesn’t think so, his memories of fighting the Demogorgon are a bit of a confusing jumble of panic more than anything coherent— and also, you know, he doesn’t actually need anyone defending him. Or want that. That would be— that would be pretty lame. Like, loser beyond the loser he already is kind of lame.

Wow, ok, yes. He is definitely a loser.

Time to stop thinking about this.

Time to stop thinking about Hargrove too— aside from how he just wishes Hargrove would come back, or call, or _anything_ to let him know what’s going on. It’s driving him _nuts_. Surely the guy must have talked to Hopper by now?

He doesn’t want to think whether something’s gone wrong. If Hargrove’s been hurt. Billy Hargrove doesn’t seem like the sort of person who can get hurt. He can, of course, he is actually nothing more than a _person_ after all— but he always seems so larger than life. _Strong._

Fuck is he strong. He can almost still feel the other guy’s muscles under his hands as he’d helped Hargrove sit or when he’d dragged him back to Scoops Ahoy. All that working out that Max complains about must be good for something— He’s hot too— not _hot_ hot— actually, yes, _hot_ hot— he’s not enough of an idiot to try and deny that. Anyway, he’s seen the way the girls act around Hargrove, heard the things they say— but, other than the fact that Billy Hargrove realistically might just be one of the best looking people living in Hawkins Indiana, the guy was also warm. When he touched him. Like— warm and alive and—

He has no idea what he’s thinking.

Like, he’s probably caught up in thinking about Hargrove because this is the most he’s had to do with the other guy since _that_ night. Ok, they saw each other every now and then at school, and he’s seen Hargrove around town— always at a distance— but this is the first time they’ve really _spoken_. And, at least after the start and before the end— the middle bit of their interaction, he’d guess— it wasn’t really what he _expected_.

Since the first moment he met Billy Hargrove the guy was trying to intimidate him— and yeah, at first he did kind of misunderstand the motivations behind that. He admits it. He was wrong. Definitely not _flirting_ — and then after the intimidation and the _violence_ came the _ignoring_. But now—

He has seen Hargrove scared— not for long, mind, because Hargrove went back to being _Hargrove_ pretty quickly, but even then it was a Hargrove that seemed less about to snap and try to murder him than any Hargrove he’s ever experienced before. It was almost like having a _normal_ conversation with the guy— admittedly a normal conversation about a bunch of profoundly _abnormal_ things. But.

But _what?_

He has no idea.

It’s just— _bugging him_. Somehow. For some reason.

He is so _intense_. Hargrove.

So intense. It’s a cliché, isn’t it, to say the guy’s like an oncoming storm? But usually— usually you can feel him in the air, like there’s this _energy_ that comes off him. Not like with El, of course, it’s not that kind of energy, more— Yeah. The _prospect of violence_. That’s what it is.

And then, just for a moment, the storm quieted—

And he’s being a poetic idiot. But it’s true. True and _weird_. Not what he expected.

Of course, at the end, when he’d been on the phone and getting nowhere, that buzzing intensity had started to come back. Hargrove wanted to smoke, Hargrove wasn’t allowed to smoke in the back room of the shop— no one was— and— he’s not sure if it was just that, just the other guy getting frustrated, or what it was, but he’d started getting— he’s not _scared_ of Hargrove, he has to remind himself of that. It’s just reasonable caution.

Anyway, he’d started getting _cautious_ , and the best thing he could think to do was distract the other guy before the guy decided to take whatever he was feeling out on _him_. It was like with Nancy, or Tommy— not that either of them ever beat him unconscious— but when they’d get wound up most of the time they didn’t really want to talk about it, more the type to let it fester until it exploded— and he very carefully doesn’t think about the last time Nancy exploded at _him_ — so the best he could ever do was try to distract them.

Food was always his best bet— but he came to learn over the course of their relationship that it worked better on Tommy than Nancy. Both Tommy— and _Carol_ — liked his cooking. Or at least used to _say_ they did. _Nancy_ never seemed all that interested in what he’d cook for her. He’d be like “Hey, Nance, you want some chocolate chip cookies?— They’re homemade—” and most of the time she’d just say “sure” or something, or sometimes even “ _no_ , _thanks_ ,” and then she—

Oh wow. Loser territory again. Now he’s sulking because his ex-girlfriend didn’t praise him enough for his cookies or want to come over so he could cook her a casserole or something.

At least Hargrove seemed happy with the _U.S.S. Butterscotch_. Ate it all and everything.

—

Fuck.

Anyway, yeah. Billy Hargrove’s re-intrusion into his life is bugging him.

Bugging him when he should be focussing on way more important things—

Though at least Hargrove didn’t just bug _him_. Neither Dustin nor Robin actually seemed that happy about his presence either.

Like, after Hargrove told him what’s up and he’d started trying to call Hopper, Robin hadn’t even complained about going out and slinging ice-cream. She hadn’t made excuses to come back into the room all the time like a lot of the girls he knows would have, or try to sit next to Hargrove, or really talk to him at all— and when he’d left she’d asked if he was friends with Hargrove now even though everyone knew the other guy had beat him up— at which Dustin had interjected something about Hargrove not just beating him up but nearly _killing him_ , and then gone on about how long he’d had headaches for afterwards even though he’d tried to get the kid to shut up.

He’d said to her, _Robin_ , that “of course I’m not friends with Hargrove” and she’d actually looked _relieved_ and said something about him being even more of a dingus than she thought he was if he was hanging around a violent _psycho_ like that— and then Dustin started agreeing with her, and for a moment he’d felt weirdly annoyed and kind of cornered and wanted to insist that if he wanted to be friends with Billy Hargrove the he had every right to be friends with Billy Hargrove— so, yeah. Apparently he is even more of a dingus, if only in his own mind, because actually he very definitely _does not_ want to be friends with Hargrove.

Or really have anything to do with the guy once this latest crisis is over. Fuck. Why won’t the guy at least _call_? Even if it’s too much to ask for Hopper to show up and—

Anyway, it’s another point in Robin’s favour as a prospective girlfriend that she doesn’t seem into Hargrove. Like, as far as he can see even _Carol’s_ hot for the guy. All the girls seem to be— or at least all the less sensible ones than Nancy and Robin.

Also, apparently Hargrove is a good lay. Or at least that’s what he’s heard. Sometimes _pointedly_. From girls he’s been with himself— back when he wasn’t a loser. It’s not something he wanted to know, anymore than he wants to know why the girls keep telling him.

_Nancy_ never complained— but then Nancy dumped him for Jonathan after sleeping with the guy when they were kind of broken up but not _officially_ broken up. So maybe he is a bad lay. Just another nail in the coffin of his self-confidence, really.

At least Tommy and Carol never said anything— but maybe that’s just because acknowledging it would make it _real_.

Fuck.

He is driving himself _crazy_.

Tonight. Hargrove better have told Hopper and Hopper better have a plan before the end of the night, because this is the night they’re getting into that room. What’re they supposed to do if they find the gate without Hargrove telling Hopper—

Actually, that’s pretty simple. He’ll stay here and try to keep an eye on things and send Dustin and Robin out to find Hopper and hopefully be kind of safe—

The Erica thing is bugging him too. Yeah, he gets why they have to use her, and yeah, it’s important, and there really is no point trying to have that conversation with Dustin and Robin again when they’ve both made up their minds— but if it was just evil Russians they were dealing with he would feel a hell of a lot better about her involvement.

He doesn’t want to get some little kid eaten by a Demodog or something. She’s to go home the _minute_ they’re in that room— he hopes he’s made that clear. Though he doubts she’s any more likely to listen to him than anyone else. _Less_ probably, considering her personality.

If only they knew what was actually in that room. It’s got to be to do with the gate, there’s no way it’s a coincidence— but what if it is a coincidence? What if there’s just evil Russians doing some evil Russian thing— and aren’t Russians supposed to be against capitalism? What are they doing being evil in a _mall_ of all places? Unless they’re going to blow it up or something, but if they want to make a show of destroying a capitalist icon then there’s surely more noticeable places to do it than small town America?— and the gate is somewhere else.

He is going to look so stupid if Hopper does show up and that’s the case.

He’d feel a bit more confident on that front if there’s been some sign of an elevator or some stairs when they got a glimpse inside that room, instead of all those boxes. Boxes of what? Weapons? Documents? Evil plans? Baby Demodogs?

Well, hopefully before the end of the night he’ll find out. _And_ it’s important. _And_ then Hopper shows up with the US Military and they deal with it before _they_ have to.

It’s going to be so awkward otherwise. And dangerous. But also _awkward_. He’s not even sure when he last spoke to Nancy— and then there’s Hargrove— but if Hargrove hasn’t told Hopper then Hargrove probably changed his mind or something and isn’t going to be any help at all if they have to fight the Mind Flayer—

Ok, wow. He should probably not think about fighting the Mind Flayer, like, _personally_. From what he’s heard from Will—

‘ _Excuse me_ ,’ Tanya Korbel’s mom whose name he can’t remember right now says, in a tone suggesting she’s probably said it a few times before.

‘Uh— Can I help you?’

She gives him a dirty look, then proceeds to order two _U.S.S._ _Butterscotchs_ — one for herself and one for Tanya Korbel’s seven-year-old sister whose name he also can’t remember.

You know, the best thing he can probably do right now is not think about anything other than slinging ice-cream.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: for homophobic language and a bit of misogyny. As always please remind me if I missed any.
> 
> I am tempted to change the title to "Strange Ch-ch-changes" but that seems like a cliche or something. I do feel like it needs a new title though, what do you think?
> 
> In which Billy does not cope well with a variety of things and so is a dick. Also, Heather being Tommy H's cousin makes sense to me, her dad is Tom Holloway, he is Tommy H.- just imagine he's named after his uncle. Thank you all for reading, and the kudos and comments! 
> 
> Also, also, Steve's cologne is Sables by Annick Goutal, which released in 1985- though I'm not sure when in that year, but let's all pretend it was in time for him to get some.

Having to tell Harrington he couldn’t succeed in finding Chief Hopper turns out weirdly fucking embarrassing. He’s got no reason to be embarrassed, _can’t help what you can’t help_ after all, but still— He feels like he’s let the other guy down.

So, yeah. Maybe he’s a bit less than “nice” in how he words it, squatting down next to the brunet and the girl and Squawky, but he does at least manage to get the words out. Those words at least. The stuff about Heather and the fucking _Mind Flayer_ seems to stick in his throat for the moment.

At least Harrington doesn’t say anything about what a mess he is, though he knows the guy has to be thinking it. Judging him. Looking down on him— yeah, maybe he should have softened his tone a bit, but Harrington doesn’t say anything about that either— even if it does make Squawky squawk at him.

When he’s done all Harrington does is frown, but he’s saved from having to work out if that frown is directed at him or Chief Hopper or the universe in general when Erica’s voice comes over the walky-talky in the girl’s hand.

Everyone’s attention is suddenly on the door down below as the girl— _What’s her name again? Starts with an “r” sound, doesn’t it?_ — and Erica talk for a moment, and then silence and waiting, even his own breath caught in his throat, cigarette burning to the filter in his hand. Beside him Harrington seems almost like he’s vibrating in place, nervous energy coming off the guy.

He needs to tell him about the Mind Flayer, the plan— such as it is— but maybe the words will come once whatever they expect to happen next has actually happened—

‘I’m in,’ comes Erica’s voice again.

Harrington seems relieved, sighing, rubbing at his face, before those dark eyes glance momentarily at him, something like embarrassment on the other guy’s face. He looks away, grinds out the butt of his cigarette, avoiding the other guy’s eyes for some reason he can’t even explain to himself. He can smell Harrington’s cologne again, this close. It’s the same one. Dry and sweet— Then everyone’s attention is back on the door down below as Erica walks out, _triumphant_.

It feels like only moments ago he squatted down by Harrington’s side, but now he’s getting up again, like the rest of them, and heading down to meet the little girl. It kinda pisses him off. Couldn’t they have just given him directions to the place down below instead of sending him up to the roof? He could have met Harrington there.

On the way the squawky kid and Harrington start talking about what they’re going to do since he couldn’t find Chief Hopper. The way the squawky kid says it, the way the squawky kid _looks_ at him, makes him think the squawky kid is thinking he didn’t do much of a job in trying to find the Chief of Police— Worse they’re talking like he isn’t even there. Like he doesn’t already have an awesome plan— well. _A_ plan. Kinda.

‘We’re all meeting at the Wheeler place to plan how to deal with it,’ he interrupts Harrington as the guy’s making some noise about staying here while Dustin and Robin— yeah, that’s right. _Robin_ — go and help him try and find the Chief. ‘Some other stuff happened while I was looking for Chief Hopper— Mind Flayer possessed Heather—’ he frowns, trying to remember her last name, ‘— you know. _Heather_. Works with me at the pool—’

‘Heather _Holloway_?’ Harrington squeaks. ‘Oh my God. Is she ok— what am I saying? Of course she’s not ok—’

‘We got it out of her,’ he tells the other guy, ‘But I’m not sure if we were fast enough. I left her at the hospital before I came to find you.’

Harrington doesn’t really seem to be listening, instead he’s muttering something about Tommy’s parents being away.

‘Tommy H?’ he snaps, ‘What’s anything got to do with that dick?’

Harrington seems to blink himself back to reality. ‘She’s his cousin— I suppose that’s not really important right now— Who is the “we” that’s meeting at Nancy’s?’

‘Max, El, Max’s other three shitty little friends—’ he ignores the squawky kid’s protest at the descriptor ‘—and I told Wheeler to go get Byers, and I said I’d go get you— and I guess _Squawky_ —’ he nods at the squawky kid, who squawkily protests that his name is actually _Dustin_ —

‘And _me_ ,’ Robin declares. ‘If everyone’s meeting up to make a plan I’m coming too.’

This starts Harrington arguing with her, but her only response seems to be ‘I’m coming too Harrington,’ and for a moment he’s reminded of himself and Max.

Eventually Harrington gives up with an ‘Ok. Ok. You win. But don’t come crying to me when a Demodog eats you or something.’ A moment later the brunet says ‘What about Mrs Byers? Is someone going to fetch her—? Actually, she might know where Hopper is—’

He shakes his head. ‘Couldn’t find her either. El say her with Chief Hopper at some point, going somewhere in a car— but since then—’ he shrugs.

‘Oh, ok,’ Harrington frowns a bit more.

‘What do you mean El saw her?’ Squawky demands.

‘I mean _El saw her with her powers_ , what do you think I meant dipshit?’

Squawky starts squawking about the girl using her powers in front of him but he ignores it. Anyway, Harrington shushes the kid pretty soon.

By this point they’re back on the ground, heading straight for the open doors and Erica. When they get close enough Harrington calls out to her, ‘You’re going home. _Now._ And before you start, _yes_ , free ice-cream, _yes,_ for life, but _no,_ not _tonight_.’

‘Nah-uh,’ she replies, looking completely unimpressed. ‘You’ve got me all curious now, so I am _not_ going home until I see whatever it is you all required _my help_ to get access to.’

Harrington tries to argue, but she argues back, and in the end Harrington gives up when the other two take her side. Kind of. It seems to him more that they’d like to just get on with what they’re supposed to be getting on with than they necessarily want to get on with it in Erica’s company.

They’re almost actually at the open doors when Harrington stops and turns to face them all and he’s about _this far_ from losing it at all their fucking _squabbling_ and not getting shit done when he needs to get back to see if Max is ok and he’s supposed to be fetching Harrington but so far Harrington doesn’t seem to be getting the message and— he doesn’t know. He’s just on edge.

He gets out another cigarette and lights it as the brunet starts talking. ‘Ok. I get it. We are _all_ going to go have a look in that room, see what’s up— but then _I_ am going to stay here and keep an eye on things while _Erica_ _goes home_ and the _three of you_ go with Hargrove and tell Nancy and the others what we’ve found. Understand?’

This sparks another round of protests from Robin and Squawky— particularly Squawky— but he does not fucking care. What he cares about is the fact that his own Goddamn plan was to go fetch Harrington and now Harrington is not doing what he wants.

‘No!’ Harrington is saying, tone like the one you use to talk to a bad dog. ‘No more arguing. For once can you all just _do as I say_ instead of acting like I’ve got no authority here?’

‘It might be dangerous,’ Squawky is squawking.

‘It’s all fucking _dangerous,_ Dustin,’ Harrington snaps, ‘ _All of it_. There is no part of dealing with this shit that is actually _safe_. But we _need to deal with it_. Before it gets worse— so I am _staying here and keeping watch_. Ok? Ok.’

Harrington turns to head through the open doors and before he can think, think better of it, he’s reached out and grabbed the guy’s arm. The brunet flinches, looks at him with big, brown, _wounded_ eyes. He drops Harrington’s arm, something sick and angry-making rising up in him. Did Harrington look like that earlier, when he grabbed him? He can’t remember. Shit. Trying to be reasonable he reminds the other guy, ‘I said I was going to fetch you.’

‘I _know_ ,’ Harrington says, backing up a little. Nervous. Nervous _again_. Pisses him off— he might be kidding himself but the brunet seemed a hell of a lot more comfortable in his company last time. At least by the end of it. _Why does he even fucking care_? Harrington continues, ‘It’s better this way though, you can see that, right?’

‘Sure. Fine. Whatever,’ he dismisses, stepping back himself and scrubbing a hand angrily through his curls only to realise what he’s done— fuck. He bets his hair looks even _worse_ now. He puffs angrily on his cigarette, surreptitiously trying to smooth his hair— even though he doesn’t have a mirror— as the others pile into the room. Giving up and following last.

If Harrington expected there to be an obvious way to the gate in here then he’s got to be disappointed. It just looks like a storage room to him. They all split up, start checking out the walls, but since there doesn’t seem to be anything to find and the boxes are still there, unopened and still suspicious, it’s not long before they’re all crowding around one as Harrington cuts it open.

 _Huh_ —

‘Ok, so we’re all thinking maybe it’s a weapon?’ Harrington suggests as he takes the lid off the box within the box.

‘Or maybe baby Demodogs,’ Squawky suggest. ‘Or Demodog _eggs_. Because none of us know how they actually re—pro—duce—’ he trails off and frowns at the contents of the box.

Harrington reaches for one of the handles before hesitating, glancing at all of them and saying they should all move back. Like fuck is he going to move back, does he look like a pussy? Apparently Squawky’s under the impression he’s not a pussy either, and it’s kind of amusing until it gets to the ‘If you die, I die.’

You know, it’d almost be fucking _romantic_ or something but the kid’s like a _kid_ and a _guy_ and Harrington thankfully doesn’t look that _impressed_. He pushes his way between the two of them, ignoring Squawky’s irritated squawking. _Fuck he hates this kid_.

‘Cute as your little faggot crush is,’ he tells Squawky, grabbing him by his shirt and pushing him over to the others, ‘Harrington said to move back.’ At least he’s not rough with the kid, though— _Why the fuck does he want to be rough with the kid_? Must just be because the kid is _fucking annoying_.

Squawky starts on about having a girlfriend, not having a crush on Harrington, and then about how he shouldn’t say _faggot_ because it might hurt someone’s feelings—

‘Do I look like I care about your little pussy feelings?’ he demands. Fuck he hates boys sometimes.

This just gets Squawky squawking more and he can feel his blood heating, temper fraying, the urge to start a fight—

‘Can everyone just _shut up_ and let me do this!’ Harrington snaps. ‘If this blows up or something I don’t want the last thing I ever hear to be the two of you _squabbling like little kids._ ’

Before he can respond to that Harrington is grabbing one of the handles and twisting it, a moment later lifting out a cylinder full of green— _something_. ‘What the hell?’ the brunet murmurs.

‘What is that?’ Robin asks, pretty much speaking for all of them.

‘Fuck,’ he hisses as the room suddenly jerks. He’s getting a bad feeling about this. He ignores the rest of them to stalk over to the door, poking viciously at the button marked “open door.” The door does not open. He does it again. ‘The door’s not fucking opening,’ he warns.

‘Let me see,’ Squawky is suddenly trying to elbow his way in to have a look. The next few moments are a chaos of him and Squawky arguing over who is allowed to press the buttons, pressing the buttons anyway, Erica insisting they press “open door,” Robin saying something he can’t hear clearly, and then Harrington trying to push his way through to press some buttons himself. Through it all the door remains stubbornly shut.

He can feel it, you know, the sense that something he is not going to be fucking happy about is about to happen.

It happens. This red shutter comes down and covers the door and a moment later the whole room _lurches_. ‘Oh shit,’ he hears Harrington say, everyone’s attention on the walls behind the shelves, the walls that are—

In the middle of everyone’s screaming he snorts out a laugh. ‘Looks like we found your elevator after all, Harrington!’

He ignores all their flailing about pressing buttons that obviously don’t work in favour of grinding out his cigarette and bracing himself against the wall. The elevator’s going fast. It’s probably going to be rough when they stop.

It is. Everything jerks and a weight slams against him and he grunts and the weight starts careening back but he grabs hold of it, steadying himself and it, but he’s not strong enough and he can’t get a purchase on anything, and then they’re both on the floor—

Harrington’s cologne smells real nice from this close is the first, completely stupid thought he has. The second is Harrington is sitting in his lap. The third is that his head hurts where he banged it on the wall as he fell.

There is a moment of perfect stillness. Him staring at Harrington sitting straddled him, Harrington staring back— then the other guy is getting up in a flurry of long limbs and kneeing him in the balls in the process. ‘ _Jesus fucking **Christ**_ Harrington!’ he snarls, hunching over and cupping his wounded junk, ‘Watch your fucking knees!’ It’s not that bad. He’s had worse hits to the balls— at least it’s just _pain_ , pain, not _oh-shit-about-to-puke_ pain.

Harrington squats down in front of him and starts apologizing, and he looks up to get a really great look at the soft skin of the guy’s hairy inner thighs where those fucking _perverted_ shorts have ridden up, as well as the bulge of the guy’s junk— centre seam of said shorts digging in— _What the fuck is he looking at?_ Jesus fuck, get it together Hargrove.

‘Fucking get away from me,’ he snaps but still takes the guy’s hand when Harrington offers and lets the brunet help him to his feet.

He reaches down and readjusts where the fly of his jeans is digging into his own sore junk, wishing for what has to be the first time in his life that he was the kinda guy who actually wore underwear. Harrington’s looking at him— _why is Harrington looking at him?_

He hears Robin ask if everyone is ok but most of his attention is on the way Harrington seems to catch himself looking and then looks away, to the side, and almost seems to be _blushing_. The air feels thick in his lungs. He clears his throat, scrabbles for his cigarette pack and puts one to his lips to light up.

‘Can you _not_ do that in here,’ Robin snaps at him, giving him a _look_. ‘Personally, I’d prefer not to get lung cancer.’

‘You weren’t whining about it earlier,’ he points out, voice part muffled by the filter.

‘That’s before I knew I was going to be trapped in here with it for who knows how long,’ she says.

‘She has a point,’ Harrington adds, which seems to shake the brunet out of whatever that was, because he stalks over to where Squawky and Erica are frantically pressing the buttons and starts frantically pressing them too.

‘I’ve seen you smoking though Harrington, don’t pretend I haven’t.’

‘Yeah, but there’s kids in here, man—’ Harrington says, before losing his temper and smacking violently at the buttons, swearing and calling the elevator a ‘piece of shit.’

While Robin’s pointing out that they need a key card he sighs and takes the cigarette from his lips, slipping it back into the pack before thumping his head against the wall. They better fucking get out of here soon. He kinda doesn’t want to start an argument right now about his right to smoke wherever the fuck he wants to— but he knows himself enough to know that’ll change. Fuck.

No way does he want to lose his shit at Harrington again, not after last time.

So, yeah. They’d better get out of here real fucking soon.

Erica has a go at threatening them, which is cute. He likes her. She’s probably his favourite out of all the people in this elevator. Harrington’s— _Harrington_. Robin’s kinda cute, but also seems kinda pissy and like she wouldn’t be much _fun_. You know, not much for messing around with it all meaning _nothing_. Then there’s Squawky. Fuck Squawky.

Fuck all of them, because now _Harrington’s_ squawking again. He tries to ignore the guy carrying on and almost ignores Squawky not squawking for once, except the kid actually has a suggestion. Not much of one, it turns out, because there’s no fucking way they can climb _anywhere_ from the roof of the elevator, but at least it was a suggestion.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: for the usual Billy based homophobic/misogynist language, as well as references to child abuse. As always please tell if I've missed any.
> 
> In which Billy engages in even more oblivious homoerotic pining than usual? I guess. While being a cranky-pants. I hope you all enjoy! Also, thanks for commenting and leaving kudos!

A few hours in he ends up retreating to the top of the elevator to smoke and get the fuck away from the rest of them and the scent of Harrington’s cologne— and not just because Harrington snapped at him to stop pacing because the kids were trying to sleep. Ballsy of the guy when it must have been obvious how close he was to losing his temper. He wouldn’t have thought Harrington had it in him. Not with the way the guy’s been hiding from him like little bitch all this time—

Ah. Fuck. He’s in a bad mood.

This is not where he should be. He should be out there, with _Max_ , dealing with the fucking Mind Flayer. Who the fuck knows what’s happening to her and El right now, if they’re even _safe_.

He might have shouted at Harrington a bit about that before his not so graceful retreat up here, but he’s not going to think about that. Any more than he’s going to think about Harrington’s attempted soothing about them probably having found Chief Hopper by now and that if Nancy’s with them they should be fine. That _Nancy_ won’t let them do anything dangerous. Who the fuck cares about _Wheeler_? Like hell is she going to be any use against what they’re fighting.

He knows it almost got her, last time around. The memory isn’t there, in his head— like, he thinks he just got the memories of what happened to _him_. His body at least, no matter who was driving it. But there’s other stuff he has a sense of. Like a feeling that something happened without knowing it. So, yeah, he thinks it almost got Wheeler last time— but it must not have, because he has vague and bleary memories of trying to run her over while she was fucking _shooting_ at him later.

Who would have guessed Nancy Wheeler knew her way around a _weapon_ — other than Harrington and Byers that is— heh.

He shouldn’t be thinking of Harrington with Wheeler. Pisses him off for some stupid reason— it must be because the two of them act like they think they’re so much _better_ than everyone else. Like the rest of the poor schlubs are just there to lick their shoes and wipe their asses—

He _knows_ he’s probably being unfair, yeah he thought that way about Harrington at first, and yeah Harrington sure as hell acted that way, but getting to know the guy even a little suggests that maybe he was wrong. Maybe. Like, the indignities of the sailor suit might just be evidence enough. He’s not sure about Wheeler though—

Anyway, looks like Harrington’s moved on to that Robin chick now. They’re probably still sitting cuddled up real close, whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears or whatever the fuck the two of them were doing that was annoying the shit out of him.

He feels like maybe he should take Robin aside, ask her seriously if she knows what she’s doing, if she really wants to hitch her wagon to a loser like Harrington. She can do better. Like, even _Wheeler_ thought she could do better, with _better_ meaning **_Byers_**. Why the fuck should he care though? If she wants to ruin her life—

Fuck he’s tired. He kind of actually wants to curl up and have a nap— up here of course, not down there with the others. One of them might try to do something in his sleep. Hit him or something— not that he thinks any of them are like his dad but fuck is that a horrible way to wake up.

It’s got the bonus of leaving him disoriented and fighting back instinctively so it’s more the thing the old man does when he’s obviously been itching for a fight for a bit but _he_ hasn’t felt like obliging. Not that Neil has done shit like that for a while, not since he and Susan got married. That was more from the bad old days between mom leaving and Susan arriving.

It’s fucking pathetic but he doesn’t sleep well around strangers if he’s not drunk, and sad to say he is not drunk. Heh. Not only is he not drunk but _Harrington’s_ the one of them he knows best and Harrington’s also the one of them most likely to take the chance to get a bit of revenge when he can’t defend himself. He reminds himself of that, even though some stupid part of him seems to think the brunet isn’t like that.

He grinds out his current cigarette and pulls out the sadly deflated pack. He’s got another in the car— but the car is out there and he is in here with only four cigarettes left. The way he’s been smoking the last couple of days he should be able to _feel_ it by now. It’s rough on the lungs, should be making him cough, but he hasn’t even had to clear his throat.

It’s probably nothing.

It has to be nothing.

Fuck. He hates this waiting around shit. There’s something in the quiet of it that scares him, leaves him in danger of thinking too much. You gotta be careful about that shit— that’s what Uncle Harry told him, one night while the other had been drinking and not sleeping and neither of them knew where Neil was. It’d been half slurred and more than half incoherent but what he’d taken away from what the guy said was that bad shit’s easier to get through if you just keep going, never stopping to think. The thoughts will come later, whether you want them or not, but leave it till then to deal with them. Because when they come they’re gonna _get you._ Better to lose it where you’ve got somewhere to hole up and hide, and not where you’re likely to get gunned down. _Unless that’s what you want_.

It’s not. At least not for _him_. Harry would say things like that with that mad, brittle edge that used to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Makes sense, now he’s older, why the guy shot himself. He’d regretted surviving. _He_ on the other hand has not survived Neil for all these miserable fucking years to be taken down by some ridiculous bullshit that wouldn’t even be real in a more sensible world.

He extracts his fourth last cigarette and lifts it to his lips, lighting it before shoving the pack back in his pocket. He’ll have a break after this one, keep the others for when something else incredibly _annoying_ inevitably happens. For a moment he wonders if Harrington has some smokes on him, but if the other guy did he’d be able to see the bulge of them in the pocket of those fucking shorts.

What the fuck is wrong with whoever designed them? The uniform’s bad enough on Robin— you know, utterly unsexy and weirdly old fashioned and kinda— whatever. Even if he was hot for her it’d sure as hell turn him off, but on _Harrington_ — Seriously, either some pervy old lady designed the guys’ uniform with its considerably tighter than the girls’ uniform _shorts_ or— and this is what he’d put his money on— some seventy year old faggot with a sailor fetish. Weird. Makes him feel weird. Bugs him, those shorts.

And it’s even harder to take Harrington seriously in them.

And— whatever.

He leans back against the metal beam of the elevator— not a comfortable experience— and closes his eyes, puffing at his cigarette as he tries to make his mind as blank as one of the concrete walls around him. It doesn’t really work, but he sticks with it long after the cigarette is finished in the hope he might manage to get some sleep.

He’s almost convinced himself that he’s almost asleep when fucking _Squawky_ climbs out of the hatch and starts squawking into a walky fucking _talky_. He puts up with it for a couple of repetitions of the kid’s babbling about a “code red” before his temper snaps. ‘If you don’t shut the fuck I’m gonna drop you back down that hole,’ he warns.

Squawky gives him a disgusted look. ‘I’m trying to get us out of here, what are you doing?’ he wrinkles his nose and sniffs loudly ‘Other than giving yourself lung cancer?’

‘Would everyone _shut the fuck up_ about fucking _lung cancer_! My lungs. I can do what I want with them.’

‘Which is apparently coat them in tar—’ Squawky begins, before throwing up his hands in an “I surrender” gesture. ‘Ok, ok. I promise not to keep questioning your poor choices if you promise to stop being such a grumpy asshole and let me try and summon some help. Unless you want to be stuck down here until we all dehydrate and die?’

It’s more sensible than he wants to believe Squawky is capable of being. ‘Go right ahead,’ he says, somewhere between taunting and magnanimous. Because he isn’t actually a little pussy bitch that lets a fourteen-year-old boss him around he takes out his third last smoke and lights up, ignoring the squawks this earns him.

It’s not long after that Harrington climbs through the hatch and starts bitching at Squawky about draining the battery. Squawky reasons back that the mall’s just opened so someone could be in range, which is a point, so he adds, ‘The kids know I should have been back by now so Max and El could be looking for us.’

‘ _See_ ,’ Squawy gloats. ‘Billy agrees with me.’

‘ _Billy_ agrees that you’re annoying,’ he tells the kid.

‘That’s because Billy is an asshole,’ the kid replies, unconcerned.

Harrington doesn’t say anything, instead standing there looking mighty uncomfortable— glancing at him, looking all _worried_ for no good reason. He’s about to ask the guy what his deal is when the brunet inches over to the edge of the elevator and turns his back on them. A moment later he hears a zipper— Ah. Guy had to piss.

Guy is pissing.

Harrington’s fucking standing not that far from him and pissing— and yeah, it’s not like he hasn’t heard the guy piss before, hasn’t been in the school bathrooms when Harrington was pissing, hasn’t pissed at the same time as Harrington, hasn’t done some real fucking stupid shit when he first moved to Hawkins— before _that night_ — like chose the urinal next to the brunet and stare at his increasingly reddening face as intimidatingly as possible while pissing because for some stupid reason _that_ seemed like a way to prove who had the most power— but it’s been a while. After all Harrington was hiding from him— And it’s weird here, not in a bathroom, and, you know, _he’s_ sitting here smoking, Harrington’s pissing. It’s— well a weird kind of domestic or something. Something indoors and out of sight more than at school for everyone to see.

It’s also weird that Harrington’s got his dick out in the middle of this stupid crisis. It’s a big dick too, he’s seen it in the showers— Wheeler had nothing to complain about. Unless it’s _too big_ when it gets hard. Who knows, Harrington might be a grower as well as a shower.

He, himself, is unfortunately more the former than the latter. Not that he’s got anything to be ashamed about when soft, it just looks— normal. Not big. Not small. Just like a dick really— but if it came down to a literal dick measuring contest between all the guys in their class he’d either have had to concede to not coming last, but not winning a place, or jerk off first— which, you know, kind of a faggy thing to do. Also, even then he might not have won. Maybe got the bronze medal. Probably wouldn’t have got the bronze medal. But he wouldn’t have come _last_ , that’s the thing. Just, you know, somewhere near the top of the middle of the pack—

Why is he thinking about the size of his dick?

Oh, right. Harrington just had his out.

He must have missed something, because Robin is suddenly sticking her head through the hatch and warning them that they’ve got company. When it becomes clear that company means two Russian guys he leans in close to Harrington, ignoring the way the other startles and freezes, and whispers, ‘We can take them.’

Harrington pulls away, shaking his head.

He tries to communicate “Why the fuck not, you total pussy?” with his eyes and thinks he gets the message across, but then Harrington’s leaning in close to him and whispering back, ‘They might have guns. Do you want to get shot?’

He tries to whisper back, “Or they might not. Don’t know about you but I can’t see _shit_ from up here,’ but Harrington’s distracted by that tube of green stuff Erica’s holding, grabbing it moments later and slipping down into the elevator, as the Russians are leaving, with barely a whispered explanation of what he’s up to.

It’s not like he feels offended that his suggestion was ignored, or that Harrington’s just doing whatever without even asking for his help— but. Anyway, moments later they’re climbing down into the elevator one by one and slipping under the door. Kids first, of course, and Robin— but if they go by that logic it really should be Harrington next, but Harrington’s waiting by the tube of green stuff— that’s starting to crack. _Shit_.

He lurches forward, plants his hands on any part of Harrington he can grab, and _shoves_ the other guy under the door, scrabbling after moments before the tube shatters and the door slams shut. They all skitter away from the spreading puddle of acid or whatever it is, but his attention gets caught not on that, but on Harrington fussing with his shorts, pulling the right leg down where it rode up because he— His hand still feels warm from the heat of the brunet’s thigh.

Wow, ok, if Harrington was a girl he’d probably be getting slapped about now for accidentally copping a feel. Jesus. The brunet better not call him a faggot or something, he was only trying to get the guy out of the way before they both got squashed.

He needs— fuck knows what he needs. But, considering the situation, the sacrifice of his second last cigarette’s probably worth it. That Russian was smoking, which means there must be more cigarettes down here somewhere.

‘Oh my God,’ Squawky squawks, ‘Do you have to do that all the time?’ and then, to Harrington, as if the guy’s his keeper, ‘Does he have to do that?’ and back to him, ‘They’re going to smell us coming. Do you _want_ them to smell us coming?’

‘Russian guy was smoking,’ he points out with a shrug. ‘Anyway, you keep squawking so loud and they’ll _hear_ us long before they smell smoke.’

‘I. do. not. _squawk_ ,’ Squawky enunciates, very, very clearly. ‘Mike squawks. Lucas squawks. _Max_ squawks. I— like El and Will— do _not_.’

‘Well, you do kinda squawk more than El and Will,’ Harrington says.

‘Whose side are you on?’ Squawky squawks in outrage.

‘It’s not about sides,’ Harrington says with an apologetic shrug, ‘it’s just facts, man, facts.’

‘Speaking of _facts_ —’ Robin interrupts, ‘It’s a fact that we haven’t actually all decided what we’re going to do next. Are we trying to find this gate or are we trying to get out of here?’

Her words drag his attention back to the reality of their situation. Shit. He can’t even see the end of the long corridor in front of them. ‘I need to get back to Max,’ is what he says, at the same time as Harrington says, ‘get out of here,’ and Squawky says, ‘Find the gate.’

‘What? No,’ the brunet says to Squawky, scrubbing a hand through his mess of hair, ‘We need to leave that shit to Hopper and the military.’

‘Come on Steve, we can’t just leave it open and run away. Who knows what the Mind Flayer is up to—’

‘And how do you propose we shut it?!’ Harrington snaps. ‘Do any of us have psychic powers? Do we even know how it works? No. Didn’t think so. We just need to find a way out of here, _alive_ , so we can tell Hopper how to get down here—’

‘Who even has _psychic powers_?’ Erica interrupts him. ‘Also, I, for one, agree with hair-for-brains. I do _not_ want to die down here.’

‘Hey!’ Harrington squawks.

‘So it’s me, Harrington, and Erica versus _you_ ,’ he says, gesturing at Squawky with his cigarette. ‘Even if the _chick_ ,’ he gestures at Robin, ‘is on your side you’re still outnumbered. _Out of here_ it is.’

‘ ** _Robin_** ,’ the girl in question hisses. ‘My name is Robin.’

‘Why do you think I care?’

She mutters something that might include the words “chauvinist” and “pig” but he’s not really listening.

‘I’m serious, who has _psychic powers_?’ Erica demands.

‘It’s a long story,’ Squawky says, dismissing her.

‘Well it looks like we’ve got a long walk, so you can fill me in,’ she retorts, looking as unimpressed as usual. She is definitely his favourite.

Squawky lets out what might just be the most put upon sigh he’s ever heard a kid make— and that’s including Max if you expect her to do the dishes. ‘ _Fine_. Let’s just—’ he waves his hand in the direction of the long walk ahead.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: mainly for dysfunctional family stuff, but Billy is Billy so always expect him to be Billy. As always please tell me if I've missed any.
> 
> Um, yes... So I'm just going to take this story in a self-indulgent direction. Yep. I hope you're enjoying it, and feel free to leave comments if you want, they are great motivation. Thank you all for reading, I really do appreciate it!

For some stupid reason Erica lets herself get distracted from the topic of who has psychic powers to the various types of psychic powers there are, which makes listening to the others even more annoying than it has to be. At least Harrington doesn’t have much to add— not that it stops him making suggestions every now and then than even _he_ can tell are pretty stupid and _he_ is definitely not a nerd.

After a while he lets himself fall back a bit, not enough to get separated, but so he has a little distance from their inane chatter to smoke his very last cigarette in peace. He is going to regret it, he just knows it— by the time they reach the end of this unending tunnel he’ll be willing to sell them all out for half a pack of what are probably pretty fucking awful Russian cigarettes.

Fuck. Max better fucking be ok. And El. The two of them better be safe and sound or else he is going to— do _something_ to whoever is up there, taking care of them. At least threaten Wheeler and Byers if it’s them. He’s not sure what he can do about Chief Hopper—

Maybe lay in wait somewhere and thump the guy when he’s not expecting it— he reminds himself this is Hawkins, land of no friends and no dark alleys. And anyway, even if he did have friends here Hawkins is such a small town there’s no way they’d get away with jumping a cop— no matter what that cop did. Or didn’t do.

The kids’ll be fine though. They have to be.

Fuck that uniform of Harrington’s is ridiculous. He can get a real good look at it from back here— he wonders if Harrington has much luck with the girls while he’s wearing it. He can’t imagine it. Can’t imagine one of Hawkins High’s more— _amenable_ — girls sinking to her knees to worship mount Harrington when it’s hidden in _those_ fucking things—

But then he remembers the guy’s with Robin, and if he can overlook how ridiculous she looks then she can probably do the same. Who knows, maybe they’re into it. Maybe it’s what does it for them. Maybe she’s soaking through her panties and he’s busting his seams at the thought of getting their hands up each other’s stupid fucking shorts.

Fuck. He must be sexually frustrated. The thought’s pissing him off more than it’s making him want to laugh— and it should make him laugh, the idea of those two losers making out, hands roaming under blue, white and red fabric, should be the fucking funniest thought he’s had all day.

Maybe he should have let that Tammy chick talk herself into doing what neither of them had wanted— nah. Girls who like sucking dick, who _want_ to suck dick, always give better head in his experience. Sub-par head is still head, but it’s got nothing on when everyone involved is having a good time.

He could try hitting on Robin? If Harrington’s being unsatisfying she might prefer to give him a go— the thought’s unappealing. She doesn’t like him, he’s not attracted to her, Harrington would probably cry about it—

And suddenly there’s a crackle of static and the sound of someone speaking Russian. What the fuck? The others all crowd around the walky talky Robin pulls out, watching her repeat the words slightly out of sync. So, apparently that’s what the mysterious Russian code Harrington was going on about sounds like.

After they all decide— without any input from him— to go find wherever that code is coming from and use it to reach someone on the surface everyone gets real quiet, all on alert for possible enemy Russians.

Harrington seems to think it’s his job to lead the way— but he can’t be bothered arguing with the guy right now. Anyway it’s kind of cute— cute like _yappy little dog_ cute, not cute like _Becky What’s-her-name_ in a string bikini cute— watching the brunet acting all confident and like he’s allowed to go bossing people around.

He starts to get a headache after a while— probably the lack of sleep, the lack of water, the lack of coffee, the lack of food, the lack of _cigarettes_. It’s a nasty kind of one, all buzzing in the base of his skull like a dentist’s taking a drill to something back there.

He cannot fucking _wait_ to get out of here.

Erica gets a glimpse at what she thinks is the Comms Room when they find the Russians, so that is where they head. Him doing his best to hang back a bit and not to end up _riding_ Harrington’s ass as they sneak past a bunch of oblivious Russians.

Of course, because the brunet is actually an idiot, all they end up doing is sneaking into a room containing one, startled, and decidedly not _oblivious_ Russian. Fuck. His first thought is to attack— but there’s kids— and then Robin is creeping forward and speaking Russian, even if it doesn’t look like she’s making much sense to the guy in question— who is reaching for his gun— so he’s thinking _attack_ again— but before he can Harrington’s letting out a kind of pathetic wail and jumping the guy. What?

Ok, yeah. Harrington’s fighting the guy. Why is he letting _Harrington_ fight the guy? If anyone should be fighting the guy it should be _him_. Harrington can’t even fucking _fight_ properly. See, he’s getting thrown around—

Fuck.

The headache must be making him stupid. What is he even doing—? He stalks forward to grab the guy, pull him away from Harrington, but then Harrington’s elbowing the Russian in the gut and whirling around to smack him in the head with a handset and that’s it. _Harrington_ won.

Messed up that hair though. He watches Harrington push it back off his face, cheeks a bit pink, mouth a bit redder from the exertion—

And then Squawky is congratulating the brunet on winning a fight and both he and Harrington freeze. He can feel it in the air between them. The _memory_ of that night— fuck.

Guilt rises.

He ignores it in favour of scooping up the Russian’s gun, checking the safety, and tucking it into his jeans before searching the guy’s pockets for cigarettes. No cigarettes. Gum, yes. Loose change, yes. A crumpled handkerchief that he hopes to hell doesn’t have _snot_ on it— but no cigarettes.

It’s been a while since he held a gun. A long, long time. But he can probably still shoot— uncle Harry taught him when Neil was elsewhere like he so often was back then. It had been kind of— it’s not like it was wholesome family bonding kind of being taught to shoot, it was more _here’s how to get them before they get you, because they’re coming for you boy, they’re always coming for you_ kind of shooting lessons.

He kind of misses uncle Harry sometimes. The guy was kinda _nuts_ , don’t get him wrong, but he also never _hit_ him, never ignored him, never talked to him the way Neil does, made sure he was fed and ate dinner with him, would talk to him about all sorts of stuff other than— _that_ stuff. War— and would actually listen when _he_ talked. He was a decent guy, underneath it all—

He lifts a hand to rub at his temples, the base of his neck, anything to get the headache to ease— it feels like it’s getting worse. He can almost _hear_ it. A high-pitched whine—

The moment he moves away from the Russian guy Squawky is there, unclipping the man’s key card from his belt. He ignores the ensuing conversation between the two kids when his attention is taken by the same thing Robin’s is, the light coming from upstairs.

He follows her, every step making his head throb, and _throb_ , and **_throb_**. Oh—

He is barely aware of her rushing past, then rushing back with the others. He is starting to feel _weird_. Sort of _numb_. Like his skin is tingling or buzzing or like the sensation of pins and needles when a limb comes back to life— only infinitely finer points of sensation. The others push past him into the next room and he follows, feeling like his _self_ , the whatever it is that occupies the inside of his head, is becoming lighter, lighter, almost as if it’s about to float out the top of his head—

He sees it. He knows it. He _fears_ it.

‘Well, we found the gate,’ Harrington says, voice sounding strange and hollow and very far away.

He’s not sure what happens next, things get kind of _fuzzy_. He has a sense of himself but not himself and yet himself. Once self here, one self almost standing in the same place but just a little offset— a little _wrong_ , a little out of time and out of sync— one self somewhere else entirely, in the cold and the dark of the steel works doing his misdeeds— but that self not _here_ , that self somewhere in the past yet now yet so close yet inaccessible— and another self but not a self, sitting beside that self, so proud of this new host, so _strong_ , so made to fight— and then there’s the other, larger, _stronger_ _self_ that is not him. The self like dark branches, like corruption, like webs woven and entangling and reaching out from the _gash_ between places and—

And they’re all running away from Russians. For a second he staggers, trips, feet not his own feet, all of him confused, and then there’s Harrington, suddenly by his side, catching him before he falls and—

Movement. The thing, black, deadly, being lifted into place.

Fuck.

He pushes Harrington out of the way as the guard opens fire with his machine gun. ‘ ** _For fuck’s sake—_** ’ he hears the voice of the other him in his ear as the force knocks him backwards, almost off his feet. For a split second there’s no pain, but then there is pain, and it’s like pain is all there’s ever been.

Then there’s Harrington again, by his side, holding him up, _dragging_ him after the others. He looks down, numb, as blood wells slowly from the line of holes from upper left thigh, across torso, to right shoulder. He has well and truly been fucking _shot_.

He doesn’t even think he’s breathing right now.

‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ Harrington is panting, wide eyed. ‘Don’t die. Please don’t die. Hargrove you gotta— don’t die. Oh my God don’t die. Oh my God.’

A moment later they’re slamming through a door and Harrington is handing him off to Squawky, who really starts squawking, but Harrington is bellowing something about “You need to get him out of here Dustin. You need to get help.”

Then he’s being dragged away from the brunet, from Robin, the two of them trying so desperately to hold the door shut, and he thinks that no, that’s wrong, he should be _helping_ moments before Squawky shoves him into a hatch and follows after, calling out to Harrington as if that’s the last time the kid will ever see him.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: For some contemplation of Neil Hargrove related things as well as suicide. 
> 
> Well, this is a short chapter, but it breaks naturally here so- I say, excusing myself. The next chapter should be out pretty soon anyway, since it's part done, so I'm hoping that's some consolation. Thank you all for the kudos and comments, I really appreciate them! I hope you're keeping warm/cool, depending where you are, and have had a good weekend.

‘ ** _You’re a fucking idiot_** , **’ his other self tells him.**

**The world around him is dark again, flecks of crap in the air floating around them both. ‘What was I supposed to do?’ he asks, ‘Let Harrington get shot?’**

**‘Of course not,’ the other him snaps. ‘Just—’ he scrubs both hands through that black stained mullet. ‘Fuck. I don’t fucking know. _Just do it better!_ ’**

**‘How the fuck am I supposed to do that? I’ve just been shot with a fucking _machine gun_ ,’ he points out.**

**‘I’ll fix it,’ the other him says. ‘I can fix it. Just might take a bit longer— You really did a number on yourself— _ourself?_ Our guts are pretty much pulp right now, do you get that?— You would have bled out in seconds if I hadn’t slowed the bleeding.’**

**‘How the fuck are you doing that anyway?’ he snaps. It’s weird. Wrong.**

**The other him huffs out a humourless laugh. ‘Do I look like I know? Because I really fucking don’t. I’m just— I’ve barely got more an idea of what’s going on than you. I just _need to fix it._ ’**

**All the things he remembers that didn’t happen to him crowd his mind. ‘Yeah, I get that. I _agree_ with that. No way I want it going down like it did last time—’**

**‘We’re monsters enough as it is,’ the other him sighs. The urge to agree wars with the urge to argue. The other him can obviously read it in him. ‘We’re too much like Neil. That’s fucking bad enough—’**

**‘I’m _nothing_ like him,’ he snarls.**

**‘You remember Harrington?’ the other him taunts. ‘Guy you just saved? Guy who never really did anything to you but who you couldn’t leave the fuck alone? The guy whose face you beat to shit? Yeah, you’re nothing like Neil.’**

**‘That was _then_ ,’ he argues. ‘I’ve been better since. Left Harrington alone. Left Max’s shitty friends alone. Been _better_ to her too— Haven’t broken any of her shit. Made her food when Susan’s been out. Put up with her when she’s squawking— I even got her that bike, remember, to make up for the skateboard I fucked up, and I only fucked it up because—’**

**‘You wanted her to learn to obey all of Neil’s fucking shitty rules that you’ve spent every day since uncle Harry died fighting back against?’ The other him gives him a rueful look. ‘I fucking _know_. All of it. You were scared for her and you hated her and you resented the fact that he hadn’t broken her yet— Not a good look Hargrove— And don’t tell me you didn’t wake up after hurting Harrington like that and think maybe it would be better if you died before you lived to become _him_.’**

**‘Yeah, well I’m still here, and I’m being _better,_ I’m helping— I just saved Harrington, as you pointed out— and if you really can fix me I’m going to do everything in my power to stop the fucking Mind Flayer, so—’**

**‘So one day maybe you can make up for all the fucking awful shit you’ve done—’**

He comes back to himself to discover Erica and Squawky arguing about who exactly is a nerd, their voices sounding strained. For a moment he can’t move, sitting slumped against the metallic wall of the tunnel, his insides still on fire. He tries to breathe, each inhalation coming tight and wheezy.

The sound of something sparking is shortly followed by the fan next to Squawky coming to a stop. There is a pause, then Erica is saying, ‘Do you think he’s still alive?’

‘I don’t know,’ Squawky answers. ‘I’m pretty sure he wasn’t breathing earlier but he was still moving—’

Erica makes a kind of freaked out noise. ‘That was so creepy. The way he wouldn’t respond to anything but just kept crawling— It’s got to have something to do with the gate and all that, doesn’t it? Did you just forget to tell me about there being zombies or something?’

‘I’m not a zombie,’ he manages to groan, body finally responsive enough that he can push himself into a more upright position. ‘Where the fuck are we? Where’s Harrington?’

‘Billy!’ Squawky squawks. ‘See, he’s not dead!’

Somehow he manages to move his hand enough to grab his muscle t and lift it out of the way so he can get a look at the damage. Big, raw looking holes, kind of scabbed over in a way that makes them look fleshy and wet instead of dry. The flesh around them looks bruised, kind of wrong, and seems to be squirming a bit— like his body is putting itself back together while he watches.

‘You sure you’re not a zombie?’ Erica asks, voice faint.

‘Honestly I’ve got no fucking idea,’ he groans, letting the top drop back down. ‘Now. Where’s Harrington?’

‘He’s— um—’ Squawky begins, voice trembling.

‘ _What?_ ’

‘The Russians got him,’ Erica answers. ‘And Robin.’

‘He’s _dead?_ ’ he snaps, fury welling up inexplicably.

‘We don’t know,’ the girl answers, and he can suddenly see how scared she is and how much she’s trying to hide it. ‘He wasn’t last we saw, but we don’t know what they’ve been doing to him.’

For a moment he wants to snarl at them for leaving the brunet behind— but they’re kids. Just kids. And with him out of commission they would have had no chance. It sucks though. He doesn’t know why, but it does.

The thought of Harrington—

He pushes down whatever feeling that is. Now’s not the time.

‘All right then,’ he says, pushing himself away from the wall with a wince. Fuck it hurts. ‘Lead on.’

The pace is slow going, mainly because of him— which pisses him off. Everything inside his torso hurts, the pain at first so intense and confusing that his body doesn’t even feel real, but after a while, as they move, as he _crawls_ , the sensation of things shifting around in there starts to cut through the agony. It’s—

_Indescribable_.

It fills him with a shuddering kind of revulsion towards his own flesh. Like he’s the other him, _before_. Body changed and remade for the fucking Mind Flayer’s use. Some part of him, some part right at the back of his mind, is shrieking _what the fuck_? But he does his best to ignore it.

By the time they climb out of the hatch the squirming is almost unbearable. It’s become easier to breathe, but now he’s panting, flushed hot and feeling dizzy. He staggers away from the cases of that green acid and flops down on the floor, waving away Squawky’s queries of ‘You ok there? You’re not abut to die on us, are you?’

A moment later _something_ shudders through him, a great convulsing heave, and he finds himself curling up on hands and knees, groaning as his abdominal muscles, the muscles of the leg that got hit, spasm in waves. And then it stops. _Plink_. He hears. _Plink, plink, plink, plink, plink_ —

He shifts to the sound of more _plinks_ as the bullets caught in his top escape and clatter to the floor. He kneels up, lifting his top away and stares down at his chest, his stomach, faint, silvery marks all the evidence left that he was shot to shit.

‘How did you—?’ he hears, and looks up to see Squawky standing there, staring at him, a set of keys dangling from the kid’s fingers. ‘Never mind. If we’re lucky there’ll be plenty of time for me to worry about what this alarming development means later. I got the keys, it’s time to—’ the kid squawks as Erica appears by his side, holding what looks like a very aggressive cattle prod.

‘You are _not_ telling me all those bullets just came out on their own,’ she says.

He gets to his feet, body moving light and easily. He feels good. He feels _strong_. ‘I see you found yourself a weapon,’ he says, eying the sparking thing.

‘Uh-huh,’ she says with a nod.

He reaches for the gun somehow still stuck in his waistband. ‘I’m thinking we should go rescue Harrington—’

Squawky tries to protest.

Tries.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: ableist language, references to violence. Do tell me if I miss any. 
> 
> I'm feeling a bit loopy the last couple of days- not sure if getting a cold or getting hay fever since spring seems to have started springing here- so I'm posting this while hoping nothing's too badly wrong with it- since I'm not sure my brain's working well enough to pick up on it if it is. Thank you all for the kudos and the comments, you're all lovely and hearing that you like my writing is, as it always is, wonderfully affirming!

The more they backtrack into the Russian base the worse his headache gets, leaving him kind of loopy, but mostly incredibly _pissed off_. The kids have come up with a plan to distract the evil Russians with that green acid, which, ok, yeah. Good plan. It just takes longer than he likes. Especially since— of course it might not be Harrington, but for a moment there he could swear he could hear the brunet’s voice, sounding all panicked and kind of pained.

He can see why, when they get to the room, when they slam the door open, when they see the guy in the creepy ass doctor’s costume standing over him— something goes kind of _blank_.

Next thing he knows Squawky is rushing past him to untie Harrington and Robin and the Doctor, or whatever he is, is lying slumped against the wall with a bullet in his skull. _Did he do that—?_ The gun’s still warm in his hand.

Holy _fuck_.

Ok. No. No time to freak out. Gotta get Harrington and Robin and the kids out of here. Got to get back to Max. Got to—

‘Billy!’ Harrington cries out with a big smile all over his battered face, ‘You’re alive! Oh my God, I was so _worried_!’ He feels something in his chest jump, raises a hand to it to make sure it’s not a lost bullet finally making its way out. Nothing. No movement.

‘Me too,’ Robin says with a nod as Squawky moves on to untying her. ‘Like, I really don’t like you very much— you are such a psycho asshole— but I didn’t want you to _die_.’

‘That would have been _awful_ ,’ Harrington agrees. ‘It’s so good you’re still alive.’

‘So good,’ Robin agrees.

He has absolutely no idea how he’s supposed to handle this sudden display of gratitude at his continued existence. He feels— _weird_.

Robin manages to get up, but Harrington seems to be having a bit of trouble and they really need to be getting out of here, so he flicks on the safety, returns the gun to his waistband, and stomps over to help the brunet up.

‘Whoa,’ Harrington giggles as he drags the guy to his feet. ‘You are _strong_. Anyone ever tell you that you’re strong? I bet you could move furniture all by _yourself_ —’

‘Come on,’ he snaps. ‘We’ve got to go.’

He’s careful not to look too hard at the mess of Harrington’s face, or think too hard about it, because he starts remembering _that night_ and then guilt starts clawing at him and he doesn’t have time right now for guilt. They need to get out of here.

The thing is— either Harrington and Robin have gotten amazingly stupid ( _stupider_ in Harrington’s case) in the last little while, or something is pretty obviously wrong with them. So, because Harrington seems to be in constant danger of running into walls or drifting off into— well, _danger_ , he has to keep a grip on the guy until they’re back at the cart. Then he has to help the guy into it after Robin, gaze just catching on the bruise around his eye for a moment as the brunet sits down.

His hand darts out, cups the side of the brunet’s overly warm and sweaty face, thumb just grazing the bruises there as he tilts Harrington’s head to get a better look. Fuck. _Did Harrington look like that when he was done with the guy?_ The brunet didn’t come to school for the next week, so the next time he saw them the bruises were old and fading to yellow-green.

He shakes off whatever moment that was and stomps around to the driver’s side, getting into a brief argument with Squawky and Erica about who’s going to sit in the passenger side— because neither of them want to sit in the back with Harrington and Robin— before he informs them that Erica is going to sit on Squawky’s lap and if either of them keep bitching about it he’s going to leave them behind.

They stop bitching. For the moment at least. But he can _feel_ the weight of Erica’s glare from her awkward and indignant perch on Squawky’s lap for the entire drive back to the elevator.

Harrington and Robin keep giggling and babbling bullshit— which is kind of worrying. If it was just Harrington he’d think it was a concussion making him loopy— since it doesn’t look like the fucking Russians were smacking the girl around too— but there’s obviously something wrong with both of them. The fuck could happen to them in the custody of evil Russians to make them act like this? It’s like they’re high or something.

When he brings the cart to a stop and he and the kids go around to let them out they just giggle at them, completely fucking useless. He ends up having to reach in and drag Harrington out, moving out of the way so Squawky and Erica can fetch Robin.

Harrington lists against him, feeling too warm against his body, eyes feverish and glassy. The sweet, dry, herbal scent of his cologne is still there, even overlaid with blood and fear. ‘You smell nice,’ the guy says, _whispers_ really, against his neck—

He freezes—

But then Squawky’s got the elevator open and is squawking at them so he drags the brunet inside, letting him go abruptly and trying not to wince at the way Harrington immediately loses his balance and collapses into a giggling heap in the middle of the floor.

Jesus fucking _Christ_.

The trip to the surface seems to take forever, but it’s really only minutes. They agree— the three of them with working fucking _brains_ — that Harrington and Robin are probably drugged, but fuck knows with what. They seem to be ok for now— high as balls, giggly and fucking stupid, but _ok_ — still alert, conscious, responsive, so all they can do is hope it wears off soon.

The plan is to get to his car when they’re back topside— but it seems like there’s Russians with guns showing up before they can even really think. For a moment he considers shooting them. Just a moment. A _split second_ — but Squawky and Erica are already running back into the mall, so he follows after.

Squawky seems to have some kind of a plan— unfortunately even he’s forced to concede the kid’s not stupid, so for now he decides to play along, letting the boy lead them all back into the cinema. As they pass a trash bin Harrington reaches in and grabs a half-eaten bag of popcorn, letting out a high-pitched whine of annoyance when he grabs the brunet by the wrist, extracts the popcorn from his grip, and shoves it back in the bin. ‘That’s fucking gross,’ he tells Harrington, ‘You’ll catch something.’

‘But I’m hungry,’ the other guy whines, and then, ‘Can we go to the food court? Please Billy—’ batting his big, brown eyes.

Oh wow. Ok. Um—

‘La-ter,’ he clears his throat, telling himself that his voice didn’t just break. ‘If you’re good.’

‘I can be good,’ Harrington promises. All big eyed and earnest and for some reason he gets the almost overwhelming urge to start beating his head against the wall.

‘I’m sure you can be,’ he grits out, still holding Harrington by the overly warm arm and dragging him into the theatre.

Squawky’s got Robin sitting in a front row seat— but seems to be kind of distracted— probably by why he and Harrington hadn’t showed up yet from the relief on the kid’s face when he drags the brunet over and shoves him into the seat next to the girl.

The two of them start whining about how close the seat is to the screen— which, yeah, he can get their point. But he doesn’t think they’re actually here to watch the movie— are they? What the fuck is Squawky’s plan?

‘Hey kid—’ he begins, about to ask the question.

‘In a minute,’ the kid interrupts him. Then tells the idiots to stay where they are and starts to lead him and Erica across to the other side of the cinema.

‘No,’ Harrington whines, grabbing him by the wrist. ‘Billy should stay. Don’t you think Billy should stay?’ he asks Robin.

She makes an affirmative noise and nods rapidly, reminding him for a moment of a hamster. ‘Billy should stay.’

‘There’s nowhere for me to sit,’ he points out, feeling suddenly strangely weak and powerless. For the merest moment he actually does want to stay. To sit next to Harrington and watch this stupid movie. _What the everloving fuck?_

The guy sitting behind Harrington starts aggressively _shh_ -ing them and he’s about to go up there and let the dick know exactly what he thinks about being aggressively shh-ed by some random douchebag when Squawky grabs him by the wrist, tells Harrington and Robin to “ _sit”_ and “ _stay_ ” like they’re a pair of bad dogs, and drags him over to the other side of the cinema.

There’s only two seats, so he ends up squatting in the aisle like a loser as Squawky and Erica sit down. ‘The fuck are we doing kid?’ he hisses at the boy.

Squawky says they’re laying low- which prompts some stupidity between the kid and Erica— and it’s like nails on the chalkboard of his suddenly very much alive temper. ‘I’m going to go check it out, try and work out our best way out of here—’ he grits out at the two of them— then it occurs to him. ‘I don’t know the Wheeler’s number but I’m assuming _you_ do,’ he glares at Squawky, ‘So how about you go find a payphone and find out what’s going on?’ They should all still be at the Wheeler house. Safe. He hopes like hell Max and El are safe—

Squawky looks like he wants to argue, but then sighs. ‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea.’

He walks away as the kid is telling Erica to stay and watch Harrington and Robin. The moment he’s stepping out into the main part of the mall he finds himself suddenly aware of what he should have been aware of the whole fucking time. The gun tucked into his waistband. The bullet holes in his clothes, the blood— not that much blood, just a bit around every puncture, but still— At least there’s no one out here. At least the muscle t’s black. At least—

What the fuck is he doing?

What the fuck is _happening_?

No. _Now is not the time_.

Evil Russians. He needs to work out where the evil Russians are and use that to work out how they’re going to get to his car and get out of here.

He shifts the muscle t around until he hopes it covers the gun— not that he’s kidding himself there. He doubts anyone who takes even a particularly long _first_ look, let alone a second, is going to be fooled— and then has a look around the outside of the theatre— not really seeing anyone. Where the fuck did they go? He keeps looking, and looking, and looking but— Nope. Nada. He keeps wandering past the bathrooms and realises he needs to piss since it’s been— a very, very long time.

After that confirmation that he’s dehydrated he has a drink at the water fountain— and still no Russians. He could really use a smoke—

He wanders away from the cinema, seeing if anywhere that sells smokes is still open. He’s feeling off— Ok. Yeah, he’s been feeling _off_ for a while now. And with good reason. But this is a _new_ kind of feeling off. Or, not new, just— Fucking Harrington calling him “Billy” _what the fuck_? No. No— _Focus Hargrove_. Jesus. Evil Russians. _Evil Russians_ —

Fuck it. He’ll go tell the kids it’s time to leave now, then they can collect Harrington and Robin and get the fuck out of here, back to his car, and he can fetch the packet of cigarettes in his glove box—

When he gets back to the theatre none of them are there. _For fuck’s sake_. Ok. Ok.

If the Russians got them the rest of the audience would be looking a hell of a lot less relaxed, so they’re probably just— Well. As far as he knows Harrington is the only one to have had a piss since they got trapped in the elevator, so maybe they’re all in the bathrooms.

They are. Squawky and Erica are standing over the giggling idiots on the floor of a toilet stall. For a moment, just a moment, he thinks maybe they snuck out to mess around— irritation, sharp and venomous, rising— but then he smells vomit. ‘The fuck’s going on?’ he demands, and then, to Squawky, ‘You get in touch with Max?’

‘I ran out of battery,’ the kid replies.

He gives him a _look_ , ‘On what? The payphone?’

‘No. Walky-talky,’ the kid replies, and then, before he can point out that that is not what he told the kid to do, ‘Even if they are at the Wheeler house it’s not like Mike’ll answer the phone.’

‘No, but _Karen_ might,’ he snaps.

‘ _Karen_?’ he hears Harrington repeat softly.

‘Won’t she be at that Fourth of July thing Mayor Kline was organising?’ Robin pipes up from her seat on the floor of the bathroom by the toilet. Fucking _yuck_. ‘I know that’s where my parents were going.’

‘She’s right,’ Erica adds. ‘Mine too.’

‘Fuck. _Fine_ ,’ he snaps. ‘We need batteries. I couldn’t see the Russians out there so how about we head out now, go back to my car, and then drive to _your_ ,’ he gestures at Squawky, ‘place so we can get some fucking batteries. I know you’ll have batteries at home kid. Just look at you.’

‘Ah—’ Harrington interrupts from his own seat on the fucking floor. _Jesus_ what is wrong with those two? ‘I kinda told the Russians where you live, so maybe that’s not the best idea—’

A surge of fury runs through him. Of all the irresponsible, stupid, fucking— ‘Why the fuck did you do a retarded fucking thing like that?’ he snarls at the brunet, looming over the other guy, fists clenching at his sides.

‘Hey!’ Robin stumbles to her feet and gets right in his face. ‘Don’t talk to him like that. We were _drugged_ —’ she actually pushes him. Not hard. But he feels the pressure of her hand on his chest for a moment. ‘ _Asshole_.’ She mutters, then turns around and helps Harrington to his feet.

He sees a flash of wounded brown eyes before Harrington looks away. Ok, so maybe that wasn’t quite the right tone— Erica is looking at him. Completely unimpressed. Ok, yeah, and maybe he did kind of loom like he was going to— fuck it. What does it matter? Jesus fucking _Christ_. Do they expect him to baby Harrington now? The guy’s a grown man, not a fucking _child_. Not his fault the brunet is a fucking _pussy_ that’s now gone and gotten his feelings hurt over _nothing_.

‘Well,’ Squawky says, and he realises the kid’s fucking giving him a _look_ too— fucking _why_? ‘We should probably just head over to Mike’s and hope everyone’s still there, unless any of you have a better idea?’

None of them have a better idea. He keeps expecting the fucking Russians to pop up all threatening or something—but they don’t. In fact they make it all the way to the car without seeing _anyone_.

‘Three in the back, one in the front,’ he tells them after he’s unlocked it and flipped the front seat forward and out of the way. There’s a moment of silent debate, then Harrington’s climbing in the back followed by Robin and Squawky, with Erica waiting and giving him a _look_ until he flips the seat back. While he’s there he sticks the gun in the glove box before fetching the cigarettes, lighting up with a sigh of relief.

As he’s reversing out of the parking spot he catches Harrington’s gaze in the rear-view mirror— His fingers clench on the filter of the cigarette— That’s not— that’s not a good look.

Harrington looks weird. Shuttered off. All that friendliness of earlier gone— and not just the _friendliness_ of when the guy was high—

No. What it’s like is when he first came to Hawkins— and after hearing all about what a _douchebag, asshole, prick, dick, loser, arrogant, selfish, smug, holier-than-thou, thinks he’s better than everyone, egotistical, conceited sack of shit_ Harrington was from Tommy fucking _H_. and letting that colour his every fucking interaction with the guy— and the way Harrington had responded to all his— whatever it was. _Bullshit_. Hassling. You know, the way Harrington would act like he wasn’t even there, wasn’t even important— that’s the kind of look the brunet is wearing right now.

_What did he do that was so bad_? Fuck knows.

He takes a deep, resentful puff of the cigarette and peels off, speeding towards the Wheeler house. What’s he going to do if Karen’s there? Play it cool he supposes, nothing else for it— except no one’s there. All the lights off. No sign of life—

They still get out to check— because apparently the kids like lurking around in the basement like the nerds they are. But, no. No one’s home. ‘Now what?’ he demands.

Squawky— who seems to have somehow ended up the leader— and fuck knows how that happened— thinks for a moment before turning to Erica. ‘You’ve got a key to your house, right?’

‘Of _course,_ I’ve got a key— _Do I have a key?_ What do I look like? A kindergartener who can’t be trusted with a key?’

‘I apologize for impugning your key-having honour,’ the kid sighs, rolling his eyes.

‘You’re thinking Lucas will have batteries?’ Harrington asks.

Squawky nods.

Just as he’s thinking he’ll have to drive them all the way across town or something Squawky and Erica are leading them a couple of houses down on foot.

It feels weird, the thought of being in Erica’s house when her parents aren’t home, or even if they were home— like fuck would he want some older guy that looked like him hanging around his _ten year old daughter_ — so he stays outside and smokes while all the others go inside.

It strikes him then, as he’s standing by himself, cigarette dangling out of his mouth— last time around he died tonight.

—

—

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ he hisses around the filter, before pulling in smoke and tipping his head back, breathing it out at the sky. Now’s not the time to think about it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: for homophobic/misogynistic language, as per usual. Sigh. Also some oblique references to child abuse. 
> 
> I liked Alexei- so, yeah. I may have made some choices to give him a get out of death free card- which may or may not be obvious in this chapter, because Billy does not care at all and so wouldn't notice anything like that. Anyway, hope you all had a good weekend and are going to have a good week. Thank you all so much for reading this fic, putting up with Billy the way I write him, and for leaving kudos and comments that tell me you're enjoying it!

Eventually he hears raised voices and he stubs out the smoke just in time to see all four of them pile out of the house. ‘They’ve gone to Starcourt,’ the kid hisses, sounding disgusted. ‘Apparently that’s where El’s powers said we were.’

‘She’s been using her powers?’ he says, then, instead of waiting for the boy to answer snatches the walky-talky off him, taking a moment to work out how to use it, before demanding, ‘El? Max? Either of you shitbrains there?’

There’s the sound of one of the other boys squawking, then a brief argument before suddenly Max comes on. ‘I’m here. _Billy!_ El said you were safe but under the mall and we didn’t know where and oh my God I was so worried!’

‘I was trapped in a fucking evil _Russian base_ ,’ he says, because it’s ridiculous enough to be worth saying. ‘But that’s not fucking important. Squawky said El’s been using her powers?’

‘ _Dustin_ ,’ he hears resentfully from somewhere behind him, but his attention is shortly entirely taken by Max saying, ‘She’s hurt! We got attacked by this— this— fuck, I don’t even know. It was like a flesh monster thing—

‘DO NOT fucking tell me she’s been _bit_ Maxine,’ he snarls into the walky-talky.

‘Um—’ Max stutters. ‘How did you—?’

‘Oh my fucking God!’ he exclaims. ‘Do not tell me you little shits just went and did every fucking thing exactly like last time. How is that even fucking _possible_? Jesus _fuck_ —’ he groans, frustrated, before his mind turns back to the issue at hand. ‘Ok, listen, if she’s been bit then there’s still a part of the Mind Flayer’s body inside of her, and if she uses her powers to get it out then she’s going to burn herself out. Do you get that Max? _Burn herself out_. She won’t be any use if you have to fight the thing—'

‘Oh,’ he hears a faint voice, her voice. _El’s voice_. Probably somewhere next to Max.

‘It’s too fucking late, isn’t it?’ he sighs, not really even asking Max, just saying the words out loud. ‘Fuck. Ok—’ he thinks for a moment. Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck are they supposed to do now? ‘We’ll have to shut the gate, that’ll be the only way to stop him. Don’t suppose you actually did manage to get a hold of Chief Hopper—?’

He expects the answer to be “no,” what he does not expect is a pause and then a deep, very deep, man’s voice saying, ‘Hopper here.’

_Fuck_.

He feels his whole body get even tenser- which is not a thing he thought possible. For a moment he wants to demand where the guy was when he was looking for him but holds off. ‘So—’ he has to clear his throat, hoping like hell he sounds like a man and not a boy, but not like the kind of man this guy will automatically want to punch in the face. ‘Has Maxine told you about the gate?’ Should he have added “Sir”? He doesn’t want to have to call this guy “Sir”— would it help though? Help everything not end the way it did last time—

‘Yeah, they’ve filled me in,’ the guys says, though doesn’t say who “they” are. Oh wow. Ok. His blood pressure is definitely rising. Fucking— he can feel himself clenching and unclenching his teeth. ‘The thing I want to know is how _you_ know about it all?’ Smug. He sounds smug. He sounds like the kinda guy who’s not gonna believe what he says, just going to fucking—

‘I _told_ you—’ he faintly hears Max whine. For a moment he wants to tell her to shut up, that you can’t use tones like that when talking to a man like Chief Hopper unless you want to get smacked around— but then he hears the Chief saying ‘I know Max, I just want to hear it from him,’ with carefully measured patience and he doesn’t know what to think.

‘Well, you see—’ he hesitates and then adds ‘Sir’ in case it helps any, ‘I was driving on Cherry Oak Drive when something hit my car, forcing me to stop. When I got out I was attacked and almost dragged into some old steel works out there, but I managed to escape, and when I did something—’ he trails off. It sounds fucking unbelievable to say that he saw another version of himself who told him about what was going to happen— and not just because it’s kind of a lie. The truth sounds worse though. Getting possessed or whatever by his alternate self. Having all those _memories_ —

The walky-talky is suddenly snatched out of his hand. He startles, looking over to see Harrington now holding it in one hand, a towel full of what looks like ice-cubes in the other, pressed to the side of his face.

‘Hey Hopper, it’s Steve,’ the brunet says, and then, ‘If you want to interrogate Hargrove maybe you should do it later— not that I think you should, because he’s been really helpful and I’ve had no reason to doubt what he said— um— Do you guys have a plan? I assume you’re going to shut down the gate— it’s under the mall, in case you don’t know— do you know? Yeah. Anyway, me and Dustin and Robin and Erica and, you know, _Hargrove_ were down there so we can tell you how to get to it—’

‘We’ve got someone here who knows the way— _and_ how to shut it down,’ the Chief says, ‘The guy built it apparently.’

‘Cool,’ Harrington says, sounding a little disappointed, ‘So what do you want us to do?’

‘Stay as far away from here as possible,’ the Chief says.

‘But—’ Harrington begins.

‘—I _mean it_. You stay wherever you are— this is a job for the _adults_. You get that, kid?’

‘I’m not a—’ Harrington begins, but he snatches the walky-talky back.

‘The Mind Flayer can track any part of itself, including the part that was inside El’s leg. It’ll be coming for her—’

‘She got it out,’ the Chief says, and then, ‘And she and the other kids, are going to Murray’s so she’ll be fine— Look. I gotta go. Tell Steve I said to _stay there_ , got it?’ and then the guy just stops responding.

‘ _Fuck!_ ’ he snarls, about to fling the walky-talky as hard as he can into the side of the house in a fit of fury, but then Harrington’s snatching it back out of his hand.

‘It’s not going to be that easy, is it?’ the brunet says, the hand holding the towel full of ice hanging limply by his side.

‘I seriously fucking _doubt_ it,’ he snaps. ‘I’ve got no idea who the dominant host is this time around, especially since I got it out of Heather, but there’ll be one and he— _she?_ — whoever the fuck they are, they’ll be _hunting_ El.’

‘ _El_?’ Squawky asks. ‘Why?’

‘Because she’s the only thing that can even conceivably stand in its way,’ he snarls at the kid, ‘only, guess what? Leave them alone for a couple days while I get stuck under a fucking _mall_ with a bunch of evil Russians and she’s gone and _crippled_ herself. Jesus fucking _Christ_. If I get another go round I’m staying with her and Max, swear to God—’

Then Harrington is talking, ‘Ok, Dustin, Robin and Erica, you all stay here. Me and Hargrove will head back to Starcourt to see if we can help— I’ll need a weapon. My bat’s in the boot of my car— which is still at Starcourt— but the Russians took my keys— Um. Fuck. Ok, Erica does Lucas or your dad or something have a baseball bat?’ 

She’s not sure, so they all go to have a look in the garage, in case there’s something there— arguing the whole time about exactly who is going and who is staying. Harrington seems pretty firm though, bitching about minimizing the number of dead kids at the end of the night, and insisting Robin stay with the other two to keep an eye on them in case they decide to do something stupid. The girl seems to think what the brunet’s doing is pretty stupid, but Harrington doesn’t listen.

‘You’ve got _one minute_ Harrington, or else I’m leaving without you!’ He calls out, then flicks the butt of the cigarette, all burned down to ash, out into the garden.

He’s got the gun, but no way is that going to be good enough— it’ll have to do though, no time to find anything better. A moment later Harrington emerges from the garage with not one, but _two_ baseball bats, cautiously holding one out to him. ‘I thought, maybe—’ the guy says, but trails off.

‘Good thought,’ he replies, snatching the bat and stomping back to his car, followed shortly by a scurrying Harrington shouting behind them for the other three to stay there.

He starts the car the moment they’re in, flinging his pack of smokes and lighter at Harrington as the guy’s doing up his seatbelt— ‘Light me one’— and peeling away from the curb.

A pause, the sound of the packet crinkling, then the sound of his lighter— a moment later Harrington’s passing it over, and as he takes it he gets a glimpse of the other guy, cigarette between his own lips. For a second he wonders if the cigarette he’s bringing to his own lips was between Harrington’s a moment earlier— but he stops that thought before it can go too far.

They smoke in silence for a moment, then Harrington speaks, voice _cautious_. ‘I know you hate me, ok, but if you’re going to try and beat me up again can you not do it in front of the kids? That shit in the bathroom was not cool—’

‘What shit in the bathroom—?’ he begins, but then he gets it. Looming over the brunet, fists clenched— Ah. _Fuck_. Ok. Guilt rises and with it _fury_ , because no way does he want to be feeling like this— not ever, but especially not _now_ — but he claws it back down— and fuck that’s a hard thing to do. Fighting with his instincts. ‘I wasn’t going to hit you,’ he says, carefully, ‘but I can get why maybe you thought I was. You’re right. Not cool of me.’

A little noise from the brunet, and he looks over to see the guy relaxing in the seat next to him. Harrington glances at him, offers a tentative smile— but there’s still something _off_. Something _hurt_ about the way the brunet looks. A moment later the other guy breaks his gaze and looks away. ‘I appreciate you saying that— which is why I probably shouldn’t say what I’m about to say but— You need to apologize to Lucas. And the other kids, but especially _Lucas_. For. You _know_ —’

The guilt and annoyance and all that shit gets harder to fight down. ‘What about you Harrington?’ he asks, voice mocking, ‘Don’t you want me to apologize for teaching you what a pussy little bitch you are?’

The other guy sighs, sounding— _disappointed_. Fuck. Why does he always have to— ‘I’m not a kid,’ the brunet says, voice quiet, calm, ‘I don’t need some make believe world where everything turns out alright and my feelings fucking _matter_ and everyone likes me— I don’t care if you hate me—‘ that fucking _stings,_ but he can’t work out why, ‘but _they_ still are kids and they’ve got enough on their plate with _this shit_. They don’t need people acting like monsters when there’s actual _monsters_ around—’ he’s about to defend himself. Tell Harrington all the ways in which he’s _not_ a monster— even though he’s thought it himself, but the brunet is still talking, ‘—not that I think you’re a _monster_. I know you’re not. Kind of an _asshole_ , yeah, but not a monster. I mean, I’ve seen how worried you are about Max, and _El_ , and a monster wouldn’t— fuck. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m trying to say— I guess. As well as being good for the kids, maybe apologizing would be good for you? I don’t think you really want to be that kind of guy— but maybe I’m wrong— and we all know you’re tough, in case it’s looking like a pussy you’re worried about— I mean, no one’s going to think _you’re_ a pussy, no matter what you do— um—’ Harrington finally trails off.

For a moment there’s silence, but then the words escape. Not really the most important words right now, but they’re the ones he can’t bite back for some fucked up reason, ‘I don’t hate you.’

‘Oh,’ Harrington says, barely more than a whisper, and he can _feel_ those big brown eyes focussed on his face. Makes him _uncomfortable_.

After another little pause he adds ‘I’ll think about the other shit you said.’

Before Harrington can react Max’s voice crackles from the brunet’s lap, where he realises the walky-talky has been resting. ‘Billy! Are you there!’ She sounds _panicked_.

‘He’s here!’ Harrington answers immediately. ‘I mean, we’re both here. What’s happening?’

‘We’re trapped in the mall and Nancy’s car is broken and there’s some crazy Russian _asshole_ out there and he shot _Jonathan_ in the arm!’ she yelps.

He reaches over and grabs the walky-talky from Harrington, ‘Max! Calm the fuck down!’ he yelps, batting at Harrington as the guy tries to snatch the walky-talky back demanding to know whether Byers is ok. ‘Fuck off!’ he snarls at the brunet, but then immediately asks her, ‘Harrington wants to know if Byers is dead or what?’

‘Um— He’s ok? I think. Will is helping him stop the bleeding—’ she replies.

‘Ok. Good. Now what the fuck is going on? What Russian? You said Wheeler’s car is broken?’ he thinks back to last time, ‘Is it the ignition cable?’

‘I don’t know what Russian! Just a _Russian!_ ’ she wails. ‘He’s like the Terminator or something— he’s got a _gun_.’

‘The car Max!’

‘The whole engine’s gone, so I don’t think it’s the ignition cable or whatever,’ she answers.

‘ _Shit_.’ Well that didn’t happen last time. It means that they can’t fix the car, like they did before he— A flash of memory, of fighting the thing in control of himself, Wheeler in front of him, going to— _fuck not now_. ‘Me and Harrington are coming to you, ok?’ he says. ‘We’ve got my car, For now you’d better— fuck. I don’t know. _Arm yourselves with anything you can_. If it’s anything like last time then he’s coming for you— is there any other way you can get out of there?’ _Jesus fucking Christ_. Why is this happening again? If he fucks it up, if they _die_ , is he going to get another chance?

‘You mean the gross, fleshy Mind Flayer body?’ she asks. ‘That’s who’s coming for us?’

‘Yeah,’ he replies. ‘It sounds like that Russian guy is probably its main host too, so you’ve got to be careful. What about the Military? Did Chief Hopper say anything about them?’

‘No,’ she says, sounding small and scared.

‘Fuck!’ he snarls.

‘We’ve got fireworks!’ Max suddenly pipes up. ‘And there’s a car! But El flung it at some confused looking Russians. We might be able to get it back upright and driveable—’

‘Good. Did Josie ever get around to teaching you how to hotwire?’ She’d been this nutty, blonde, twenty something year old Australian surfer chic he’d hung around with for a bit about a year before they came to Hawkins— until she moved on. Not much a one for commitment. He hadn’t minded much, it was hardly true love or anything— though she was a pretty wild fuck.

‘Yeah,’ she replies, and then, ‘We’ll go do that now.’

‘Don’t fucking _die_ ,’ he warns her.

‘You too,’ she replies, and then she’s gone. Off to try and deal with the fireworks and the car. The fireworks— he can remember those. The smoke. The _pain_.

‘Fuck,’ he snarls, winding the window enough to flick his cigarette butt out, and then, gesturing at Harrington, ‘Light me another one.’

He feels like fucking _eating_ the things, he’s so wound up. A moment later he looks over to demand that Harrington hurry up and sees the brunet, cigarette between his lips, lighter held up as he inhales to help the flame catch. Fuck. He was right—

Then Harrington is handing it over and even though part of him is screaming that it’s a pretty fucking _faggy_ thing to do, put his mouth where Harrington’s just was, he’s got it pressed between his lips and is sucking in smoke as fast as he can. Can he taste the other guy? That would be—

_Weird._ That would be weird. Without him wanting it to his tongue flicks over the end of the filter in his mouth.

There’s no time to think about it now, because the mall’s just up ahead— and he can sense it. The other not-him _him_. The Mind Flayer.

If he wasn’t already flooring it he’d would be now.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: for usual Billy type language, references to child abuse, oh, and body horror this time. 
> 
> Only one more chapter after this one until this fic is finished, but there should be at least one more story in the series. Thanks, as always, for being such a great audience, for the comments and kudos, and I do hope you enjoy the chapter...

‘Is that—’ Harrington says, peering out the windscreen.

He looks at what the other guy is staring at. A figure, large and grotesque and obscured, climbing up the side of the mall. He grabs for the walky-talky, but before he can Harrington’s already got it up to his mouth. ‘Max! Nancy! Anyone!’

‘Steve?’ El answers.

‘It’s on the roof! The Mind Flayer— me and Billy— _Hargrove_ — are almost at the mall and we can see it. You gotta— _I don’t know_. Just— Fuck, _be careful_!’

They can both hear the echoes of panicked voices from the area around El, but she remains calm, simply says, ‘We will.’

Before Harrington can sign off he reaches over, pressing his fingers over the other guy’s on the handset to keep it on, saying, ‘And keep the walky-talky on you. Or Max. Got it?’

‘Got it Billy.’

When he lets go he hears Harrington gasp, but there’s more important things to worry about right now than what that means. ‘Get the gun out of the glove box, I don’t want to have to waste time looking for it when we get there,’ he orders.

The brunet clears his throat, reaching out to do what he asked, voice wavering a little before firming up as he says, ‘Somehow I don’t think it’ll be much use against _that thing_.’

He shrugs. ‘Probably not— but it’ll at least mildly inconvenience that Russian Max was talking about—’ If he’d been shot last time around it would have taken him a minute to put himself back together.

‘You really do kind of like her, don’t you?’ Harrington muses as they pull into the mall’s parking lot.

‘Little shit grows on you—’ he mutters, eyes catching on. Yes. There. The Russian lurking near the doors near what must be Wheeler’s dead car, and by its side— is that?

‘Is that a smaller version of the big monster?’ Harrington asks.

‘I hope your fucking seatbelt’s buckled,’ is all he says, aiming his poor baby at the two of them.

The Russian sees him before the car hits, but it’s too late to dodge. He’s jolted forward, hears Harrington grunt from beside him, feels the shattered glass of the windshield come tinkling down over him.

When he opens his eyes the little monster is part draped over the hood, a tentacle— limp and unresponsive— almost all the way through the windscreen. He can’t see the Russian. ‘You alive Harrington?’

Another groan and then, ‘Yep. Yep, I am— I am alive.’

‘Good,’ he says, and it is. Relief he doesn’t want to feel is rising in him, but _no time now_. ‘Gun,’ he demands, holding out a hand for the thing.

A moment later Harrington’s handing it over and they’re both climbing out of the car, baseball bats in hand. As they do he hears it, the sound of the glass roof cracking, giving way, the Mind Flayer’s largest body falling through. The thud as it lands.

His heart feels like it’s beating in his throat. _Max. El_ —

He can’t even contact them with the walky-talky to see if they’re ok, since it might attract the thing’s attention to them. Fuck. _Pisses him off._ Tucking the gun back into his waistband he hefts the bat and stomps around to the small monster lying across his car, bringing the length of wood savagely down where he thinks the closest thing to a brain is. Ichor splatters in his face as the bat starts smashing its way through the outer flesh, pulverising bone and tissue and half-melted blobs of displaced organs.

He feels _strong_ , strangely, weirdly, oddly, _wrongly_ strong—

The merest flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, but before he can turn around and wallop the Russian in the head with the bat Harrington is there doing it for him. The wood lands firmly, a solid, hollow, _thunk_.

The Russian just shrugs it off. He reaches for the gun.

‘It’s you again,’ the host says in Russian accented English. Weirdly the patterns of his voice are almost identical to Heather’s. ‘I still don’t know how I know that you are not a good host, but it doesn’t matter now. I found a _stronger_ one.’

‘ _Fuck you_!’ is his only response to that, no guilt, no connection, no familiarity stopping him from bringing the gun up and around and unloading a good six bullets into the thing’s head. He probably should have checked how many are in the magazine since he now has no idea how many he has left. Oh well.

The Russian staggers backwards, drops to one knee, flesh in the crater where its face used to be starting to squirm and wriggle and reshape. ‘Fuck.’

‘Um— Billy. Shit. I mean _Hargrove_ —’

‘What?’ he snaps, turning back to Harrington.

‘The one on the car’s kinda—’

He spins around, sees it melting down, oozing across the parking lot towards the doors of the mall. ‘It must be going to join the main body,’ he says.

‘Should we go after it?’ Harrington asks, and then, ‘Fuck. That’s _disgusting_. Look at it— is that a jawbone? Oh my God.’

‘We need to keep it away from the kids,’ he replies, ‘But as long as the gate’s open it’s not going to die—'

‘Yeah, and that massive fucking thing is in there with the others,’ Harrington points out, kind of redundantly. ‘Jesus Hargrove, do you have any kind of a plan of how to deal with this?’

‘I’ll work something out,’ he promises, ‘but for now how about we just _hit something_.’ He stalks over to the puddle of what was once people and does just that, bringing the bat down on the leading edge. It— _splatters_. But at least the thing stops creeping ever closer to Max.

‘What about him? Harrington asks, pointing at the Russian with the end of his bat.

‘If he starts moving hit him,’ he replies as he brings his own down again and again on the puddle. If only there was a brain or something he could destroy, some way to make it _stop_.

‘Shouldn’t we be trying to get everyone out of here?’ Harrington asks after a moment. ‘I mean, if it can’t track El anymore we might be able to evade it and hide out until Hopper’s—’

He stops hitting the puddle and glances back at his damaged car. ‘Fuck. Should have remembered that. Can you see if it still works?’

‘Um, ok,’ Harrington says, trotting around to the driver’s seat. It’s kind of— don’t ask him what it is, letting the brunet drive his car. Yeah, he’s given Max some driving lessons, but she’s the only one aside from him he’s ever let behind the wheel.

Crumpled though it is the car still starts, and when Harrington puts it into reverse it backs up almost smoothly. ‘Still works,’ the brunet says once he’s stopped and climbed back out. ‘I don’t know we’ll all fit in it though—' as the other guy speaks the puddle twitches, so he brings the bat down _hard_ again, stopping it.

‘You, me, Max, El— maybe the little faggot kid. The others can fend for themselves, can’t they?’ he says, only half joking.

‘I’m not leaving Nancy—’ Harrington begins before yelping. ‘Shit! Billy! _Russian_!’

The Russian in question is up and running, not heading towards them but— and memory swamps him, faded and surreal and full of pain, body and mind and all of him _screaming_ as he dragged himself out of his wrecked car and into the mall by the back door the Russian is heading for, stalking down corridors, and Max, and _El_ and—

He’s sprinting after the host before he can even think. _Not this time. Not this time. Not this time_ — his memory stops before it’s all over, that’s the thing. He has no idea if Max or El or even fucking _Harrington_ made it out alive and he can’t _stand_ it.

It _used_ him. _Destroyed_ him. Made him something _worse than fucking **Neil**_.

It clatters through the door, him fast on its heels, but then it’s wheeling around, face still all _wrong_ , eyes only just growing back, nose and upper lip still a void, and it has a gun, it must have just remembered it, and it’s raising it, and he’s lashing out, bat a brutal extension of his own flesh, _smashing_ it into the thing’s arm, _pulverising_ bone and cartilage and the joint of its elbow. The gun drops, skitters, he hears/sees/senses/fuck knows Harrington bending to pick it up, and the thing has noticed the brunet and ‘No you fucking _don’t_!’ he roars bat swinging around to its face but _thunk_.

It catches it. Humanity is starting to strip away from it. Disjointing. Reconstructing.

‘ _Fuck_!’ he hears Harrington yelp, feels the air displaced as the brunet whirls around and strikes out with the bat at the partially formed puddle monster coming up behind them, heading for the Russian.

His own bat shatters in the Russian’s grasp. ‘Fuck, oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Harrington is muttering. ‘We’re trapped. We are so fucking _trapped_.’

‘Shoot it!’ he orders, reaching for his own gun and bringing it around, unloading one bullet into the Russian’s deforming face, two, three, four— _click_. Empty.

Behind him he hears Harrington doing the same to the puddle, each _bang_ accompanied by a _thud_ as the bullets strike true. The puddle is roaring, but he can already tell that the bullets won’t be enough, there’s desperation in it, in the Russian— the Mind Flayer must know it’s in trouble.

A flash of movement, a tentacle reaching for Harrington—

**_Rage_**. His own and— the other him, a voice, a roar ‘ ** _This time I’m going to fucking kill you’_** — something, _all things_ , crack and twitch pull apart and _pain_ and— he fades, numbs, body no longer responsive as it shifts out of _him_ shape as the other him is suddenly the one in control.

There’s flesh and tentacles and parts of him elongating and twisting and reaching and grabbing and rending and tearing and the other him _screaming_ , both inside, where he is, stunned and staring, and outside, a wretched, animal, _alien_ shriek of pain and fear and rage.

Parts of his body lash out, all spikes, all bone where there should be no bone, _pinioning_ the Russian, the puddle, even as they struggle. Him. The him inside. The him _watching_ , sees Harrington skidding back, away from them all on the ass of his stupid fucking sailor suit. The brunet is almost chalk white, eyes like big, dark pits in a terrified face.

Then Harrington is cocking his head, looking up, and scrabbling to his feet, a sound reaching him, the sound of— _Max?_

His body acts. Contracts. Many limbed spiderform of bones and spikes clenching tighter around, through, inside the fleshy masses of Russian and puddle, dragging them in, pulling them away from where he can hear her. Her and El— and that annoying kid.

Just like last time. It’s just like last time.

‘ ** _I won’t let you_** ,’ both hims think, both hims _say_ , voice echoing and alien and unreal. ‘ ** _You will never touch her_ —**’ and he means Max and he means El and some small, child part of him is screaming it at his dad as fucking Neil stands over his mom.

And he sees Harrington lurching towards the sounds of them, catching Max, El, that shitty kid in his arms, and dragging them away, around the corner, back into the mall. ‘Where’s Billy?’ he hears Max say, but doesn’t hear Harrington’s answer.

The figures in his body’s grasp wriggle and twist and liquify, trying to escape, trying to flow into one, trying _anything_ , but the other him keeps his grasp, body shifting and changing and flowing to contain them and it’s—

It is too deranged, too _unreal_ , he is too far from himself, from the immediate sensation of it, trapped somewhere in his own mind— or else he thinks he’d be _screaming_.

The fleshy slime that was the Russian, the mini Mind Flayer, screech, cry out, and he feels it. Protest. Pain. _Fear_. The Mind Flayer itself crying out. And the other him is crying out too. And for a moment he feels like the screams will eat him— the _him_ him— whole and—

He stands by his car on the side of the road and in front of him is himself and falling all around is rot and ash. ‘ _What—?_ ’ he begins.

‘ _What—?_ ’ the other him echoes.

And then there is nothing.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: For Billy being Billy, basically.
> 
> Ok, so this is the last chapter of this part of the story, but fear not, more will be coming soon- in fact I've already gotten started on the first part of the next fic in the series- in which I am going to be mean to Steve for a bit- before we shall return to Billy. Also, just to let you know, I've pretty much given up and decided that things are going to be getting pretty self-indulgent in here, so there's that.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, for letting me know you like it, for being wonderful, and for playing along when things suddenly took a turn for the Cronenbergian. You are awesome!

He comes back to himself staggering out into the night air. He can smell something, something he likes, even under the smell of old sweat and blood and puke and cigarettes. Something dry and sweet and herbal and spicy and welcoming.

There is a warmth along his side, something beneath his arm, something holding him up as they stagger along—

‘Harrington?’ he asks, blinking blearily back to reality. ‘What the fuck happened?’

A weird little chuckle, sounding half strangled, then the other guy is saying, ‘I don’t even fucking know. I think we won though—’

‘What’s—’ he gets his eyes to focus, finds that they’re staggering out to the front parking lot. He glances down at himself, expecting to see nothing but naked skin, the memory of his body— _deforming_ — coming back in surreal flashes. But he’s dressed again. Clothes the same— stained and bullet torn— as he remembers. Huh.

Up ahead he sees Max and El and that shitty, dark-haired boy, huddled together on the ground near Wheeler’s car, no one else around. Wait— ‘Where’s my fucking car?!’ he demands, trying to straighten up out of Harrington’s grip.

‘I don’t know,’ Harrington answers, ‘I think maybe Nancy and the others—’ and that’s as far as he gets, because Max and El see them and a moment later the two girls are up and rushing over, El leaning heavily on Max, the boy following a moment later.

‘Billy!’ Max screams, face and eyes red. ‘Billy! _Oh my God **you’re alive**_! We thought it got you!’

‘Nope, still here shitbird,’ he replies, wrapping the arm that’s not slung over Harrington around her when she launches herself at him. He sees El hesitating, looking like she wants in on this stupidly emotional moment, so he lets go of Max long enough to gesture that she’s welcome and a moment later she’s plastered to him at Max’s side.

Fuck.

_Fuck_.

It _worked_.

He’s _alive_. They’re _alive_ —

Fucking _Harrington’s_ alive.

It’s like all the energy goes out of him and he starts sinking to the ground, Harrington yelping before catching him, helping him the rest of the way, until he’s sitting in the middle of the parking lot with both Max and El clinging to him.

The dark-haired boy is staring, so he stares back. Fucking sulky looking kid, that one.

A moment later Harrington sinks down beside them, gesturing at the sulky boy until he sits— as close to El as he can get while still remaining as far away from _him_ as is possible.

‘Fuck, we survived,’ Harrington says, suddenly.

‘Yep,’ he replies. He glances up at the mall— ‘Huh. This time it’s not on fire—’ He looks at Max, ‘Didn’t you get around to using the fireworks?’

She shakes her head, points at the boxes of them on top of Wheeler’s car. ‘We couldn’t get past that Russian guy.’ She then punches him, just once, and not too hard, in the side. ‘Why didn’t you tell us the gate was under the mall? We wasted so much time _looking_ for it.’

‘I _did_ ,’ he insists, but the certainty fades. He’s sure he did— maybe he didn’t? ‘Didn’t I tell you what Harrington was up to?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘You were all “the gate is open, the mind Flayer is loose, I have to find Hopper, now I have to save Heather”— you could have given us all the details. Dick.’

‘I didn’t expect to be trapped in a secret Russian base Maxine,’ he snarls.

‘You should _always_ expect to be trapped in a secret Russian base,’ she tells him, which makes both precisely no sense and way too much sense. Like, getting trapped in a _secret Russian base_ isn’t really all that likely to happen most of the time, but that doesn’t mean other shit won’t come up and make it really fucking _inconvenient_ if you haven’t shared all the necessary facts.

He’s about to say something, maybe concede she’s part right— but only _part_ , when Harrington starts making the weirdest fucking noise. It takes a second to work out the guy is laughing, giggling really.

He stares at the brunet— and isn’t the only one, both Max and El— and the dark-haired kid— all watching as Harrington lists over, still giggling as if he’s heard the funniest thing anyone’s ever said, and ends up lying on his side, curled into a loose ball.

The guy just keeps laughing. Laughing as his car drives cautiously back into the parking lot and Wheeler, Byers, Sinclair and the little faggot kid pile out. In the fuss everyone makes at this reunion he thinks he might just be the only one who hears Harrington say, ‘Oh fuck. I think I’m going insane.’

Before he can decide if he wants to take the time and energy to deal with that statement the sound of choppers cuts through the night air. He looks up as they fly in, watching casually as they land and the US military starts piling out. ‘Huh. So he did contact them. You want a smoke Harrington?’ he asks, getting to his feet.

‘I g-g-guess?’ the guy answers, between giggles.

He stalks over to his car, ignoring the noisy knot of kids and Wheeler and Byers, pulling the passenger’s side door open and fetching the Marlboros and his zippo from the footwell. He looks at them for a moment, waiting for that _need_ he’s been strangled with these last few days to rise. It doesn’t. Oh well, no reason not to smoke anyway.

Lifting a cylinder to his lips he lights it, drawing in the smoke and blowing it out, before looking back down at the pack, thinking of Harrington, cigarette between lips, lighting it for him—

Nah. That would be— Nah. No way.

He plucks a cigarette from the pack and wanders over to the brunet, who has managed to get himself back upright, handing over the smoke and then sitting down next to the other guy to light it with his zippo.

Harrington leans in, draws air through the filter, those dark eyes looking at him for a moment, and he’s sure, absolutely _sure_ that the brunet is about to say something about what happened at the end. About him actually physically turning into a monster, but Harrington looks away.

It’s not long after that when Mrs Byers and Chief Hopper and some balding dude leaning on another incredibly nerdy looking dude emerge from the elevator to the Russian base, and there’s just enough time for more reunions, but not for him and not for Harrington, the two of them just sitting there, together, and then for Erica, Squawky and Robin to pile out of the car of some guy he thinks he might have had some classes with— which of course finally drags Harrington away to be utterly, thoroughly _hugged_ in a smothering kinda way that almost makes his skin _crawl_ by Robin and Squawky— Erica looking on with that _look_ on her face, before she notices Sinclair and goes to give _him_ some of her attitude, before the military rounds all of them up, gets them looked over by medical staff, talks to them, asks questions, threatens in the mildest way, and then just _lets them go_.

It’s early morning when he and Max are dropped off back at home by a very nice woman he thinks is _probably_ army. Susan comes rushing out the moment they step out of the jeep, a moment later Neil joins her.

His dad looks— odd. Tired and old and small— but Neil doesn’t say anything, just turns around and goes back inside before they’re even halfway up the front path.

‘He was worried,’ Susan tells him as she ushers them after his old man, ‘We both were.’

Huh. Funny. _He doesn’t even fucking **care**_.


End file.
